The PPC at Torchwood Three
by IndeMaat
Summary: The Rift has become more volatile. Some of the problems that causes can only be dealt with by a special cleanup crew. [Protectors of the Plot Continuum spinoff]
1. It's All in the Genes

_A/N: Protectors of the Plot Continuum was founded by Jay and Acasia. Excerpts taken from _It's All In The Genes_ by pixiespryte. This mission was chronicled by IndeMaat_

-oOo-

The hardest part about moving to a new Mary Sue Division, and a new Response Center to go with it, was reassuring Trent that she would still come and visit him as regularly. Being the only adult that had been remotely parent-like to the boy in the years since his mother had died, the boy had quickly grown attached to her. She finally got him to stop crying when she told him that she was going to _Torchwood_ subdivision: a scifi series that dealt with aliens.

"Aliens?" The boy's eyes had grown big. "You'll tell me all about them, won't you? When you get back, you'll tell me about your missions?"

"Sure." She'd make something up; she still didn't think Sue stories were suitable narration for ten year old boys. She gave him a kiss and a hug and tousled his hair before she left.

Now, all her belongings packed into two duffel bags and a cardboard box, she walked into her new Response Center. It was empty. That is, it had all the standard Protectors of the Plot Continuum office equipment. Along one wall was the console that allowed for viewing of and stepping into fics. Across the desk lay strewn a number of useful gadgets, such as a Character Analysis Device and a Remote Activator for the Portal. That these were here probably meant that so was her new partner. Just as Tasmin was about to announce herself a girl walked in from the bathroom. She paid no attention to Tasmin for she was talking to a doll in her hand.

"Really, Jack, you ought to wear that suit more often. You look very handsome in it."

Tasmin quietly retreated from the room. She turned around to make a run for it when a voice called out to her.

"Hey, you must be my new partner."

Tasmin froze. What should she do? Ignore it and keep on walking? Too late. She had been standing still for too long. The girl knew by now she had heard her. Tasmin turned around.

"Hi. You're right. But I just remembered I had left something in my old office. I was just gonna go and pick it up." And never return here.

"Oh, never mind that. Whatever it is I'm sure you can borrow it from me. Come in, come in."

Reluctantly Tasmin stepped back into the office. She studied the girl that now stood in the middle of the room. She was lanky, tall and flat-chested. She wore her orange-brown hair in a big braid on her back. High-school must have been a ball for her, Tasmin assessed. The doll was gone from her hand.

"I've never had a black partner before."

Tasmin gave her a blank look.

"I'm sorry, that was insensitive of me."

"No, not insensitive. Stupid, though."

"I'm sorry. I'm Emma Julia. You can call me E.J."

"Hi Emma, I'm Tasmin."

"I prefer E.J."

"I prefer Emma." Thus having set the first of the social boundaries between her and her new partner, Tasmin thought it time to explore the spacial boundaries. "Where can I put my stuff?"

"You can put some on these two empty shelves. And there are also three empty drawers for you. So you can store five items."

Tasmin raised an eye brow.

"If you put one item on the shelf it is no longer empty." Emma gave her a slightly condescending smile.

Tasmin appreciated this comment. She was pleasantly surprised her new partner knew logical puzzles. "I was just wondering where to put the rest of my stuff."

Emma shrugged. "Underneath the sofa, I guess." She sat down on one of the desk chairs by the console and started to undo her braid.

Tasmin unpacked her two duffel bags and the cardboard box of books she had brought. She ignored the directions to only put stuff on empty shelves. When she was done she studied the things her partner had put on her shelves. On one shelf stood a Captain Jack Harkness action figure in the middle of a small version of the Hub. The other shelf held a large collection of sporks made of different kinds of metals. There even were a number of glass containers holding sproks with little notes attached to them. _Natrium, don't get wet_ one of them said.

"What's in the lead boxes?" Tasmin turned to Emma.

"Sporks made of the unstable elements."

"Terrific."

"They were a welcoming gift. Didn't you get one when you joined the PPC?"

"I guess I sorta snuck in through the back door."

"I didn't even know we had a back door."

"So, what is _Torchwood_ like?" Tasmin asked. She sat down on the other desk chair. "Fandom wise I mean."

"Well, it's relatively new of course. I guess the Flowers finally got wise and started putting agents in before things got out of hand. You have to admit: taking Sues out of LotR is like trying to put out a house on fire when all you have is a bucket with a hole in it."

Tasmin nodded. She wondered whether the bucket could be a metaphor for agents slowly loosing their sanity.

"But _Torchwood_ itself. I think we'll have relatively easy jobs. I mean, _Torchwood_ is pretty much an anything goes fandom. Slash? That's canonical. And other problematic issues? No problem. MPreg--"

"Not another word."

"What? MPreg--"

"I'm warning you. I don't want to hear it. You could only put ideas into people's minds."

Emma gave her a frown. "All right. So, basically all we have to do is look out for the Mary Sues lusting after Jack. And Ianto, and Gwen, and Toshiko."

"And Owen."

Emma curled up her nostrils slightly before she added "and Owen". She finished braiding her hair and threw the tail over her shoulder.

**BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!**

Tasmin ducked her head between her shoulders. Emma dove to the floor.

"I guess I'll never get used to those things," Emma said picking herself up from the floor.

"Well, this one was extremely loud." Tasmin started tapping the keys on the console to view the fic.

"What have we got?"

"Jack's younger sister drops through the Rift."

"Sister, 'ey? I have the feeling Jack turns out the be from a very large family, in which he was the only boy. Kinda like Joey Tribiani."

Tasmin frowned at Emma. "Any suggestions for disguises?" she asked to bring her partner's attention back to the matter at hand.

"Let's go as Weevils." Emma vigorously nodded her head. "First we scare the Sue and than afterwards we get to ravish her."

Tasmin quietly rubbed her forehead. She feared she would be wearing a permanent scowl working with Emma.

"Or let's go as fairies. They're invisible, most of the time, and they can fly."

"That sounds better. Pack your bag." Tasmin tapped the keys on the console and a portal opened up. She grabbed one of her duffel bags and weighed it in her hand. Yep, everything she needed was in there, and a little more. She jumped through the portal after Emma.

-oOo-

Emma pushed herself up with her feet and started flapping her wings the moment she hit the ground inside the fic. She didn't really have the hang of flying yet, but she managed the hover a few feet above the ground nonetheless. Tasmin, however, had never flown anything other than second class or luggage space and needed reminding to flap her wings every time she hit her feet back on the ground. It took her a few minutes to get her balance, and then she lost it again when she threw her duffel bag over her shoulder and hit one of her own wings.

Emma couldn't help laughing as her partner bobbed across the road.

"Just you mind yourself and the Words." Tasmin tried to hoist her duffel bag over her shoulders and wings properly.

Emma looked up and focused her attention on the Words of the fic they had just entered.

_She was an ordinary girl in an ordinary world._

"I think those are words from a song." Emma started to hum a tune to see if the words fitted it.

"Where ever the words are from, they're not true in this case or we wouldn't be here."

Here was a fic that was set in the fifty-first century, location Massachusetts. Tasmin noted the surroundings were featuring the common elements of future stories: sky scrapers and gravity defying transportation. She smirked. So much for originality.

According to the fic things had been 'Weird'.

_People had started disappearing, from all over the galaxy. People from the colonies, Vogons, Venusians, Humans, at least fifty people from every species centred around the galaxy._

Emma chuckled. "Seriously. Unless they were all on the same bus when they got missing, I hardly think anyone has noticed much. I bet more people get themselves missing annually in the US alone. And no one calls that 'things are getting Weird'. Or staying weird, or what ever."

"You forget that in the future they have probably better means of tracking people than we have in our time. So they probably would notice if they suddenly lost their means of tracking people."

"You have a point. But if this Big Brother that is watching everyone lost track of a few people, I doubt they would advertise that fact. I mean, it kind of undermines their position as know-it-alls."

Tasmin shrugged. "I think this fic is too short for a full explanation of culture and society of the fifty-first century. If the author had done that this would have been a novel before Torchwood would have even gotten a mention."

Emma grinned. "Nothing wrong with that."

"Nothing wrong with that at all."

_Nobody had been able to stop it from taking her family. Who knew where they'd gone. Her mom could be in the year five billion and her dad in cavemen times. And her siblings could be scattered in time and space. And not necessarily where there was oxygen._

_Tasha sighed and carried on walking aimlessly around the city. She'd been spotted by The Services the other week. Social. Urgh. She'd been shoved in a Home and had had no freedom since she'd finally had her pleas for a bit of freedom heard. _

"Well, she would notice if her family went missing."

"Of course, family always notice, as long as they're close. And it has affected her, 'cause that," Tasmin pointed at the last sentence, "is grammatically odd: after her pleas for freedom were heard she ended up with no freedom."

"It's a typically nineteenth century orphanage," Emma smirked. "We learned about them in _Oliver Twist_, _Jane Eyre_ and _Kruimeltje_. The Sue could have avoided these problems by making herself a few years older."

"Haha. No!" Tasmin's smile suddenly dropped from her face. "I won't have it. People are always complaining about societies that don't take care of their children properly and here we have a society that is taking care of its children, well, at least doesn't let them roam about in the street, and now there is someone complaining they do just that. I won't have it."

"You're right. Even if it is a run-on sentence." Emma ignored her partner's scowl. "But she's sixteen and sixteen-year-olds always think that any form of discipline is a violation of their human rights."

Tasmin grunted. "Get the remote activator. I think we should move on."

Emma nodded and got the remote activator from her shoulder bag. A portal opened and both agents flew through.

-oOo-

It was twilight. Evening rush hour Tasmin figured. She had finally gotten the hang of flying as a fairy. Flapping her wings she hovered eight feet above the pavement. She watched the hovercars and hoverbuses go by.

"Why is it that half the future stories imagine that in the future there will be no gravity?" Tasmin asked.

"Uh, they probably think that something has been invented that keeps the cars afloat."

"Like what? An unlimited power source?"

"I don't know. Gravity is a funny thing in future stories, anyway. You have it in space, but you don't have it on Earth."

People passed underneath them, but took no notice. Tasmin was glad the invisibility thing of the fairies worked. She didn't know how it worked, but that it worked was most important. She had spotted the Sue and nodded Emma to follow.

The Sue overheard someone in the street making a phone call in which he mentioned the name Harkness. Because that wasn't a common name it had to be about her family. She decided to address the person making the phone call.

"_Erm, I was just wondering, what were you talking about, to whoever you were on the phone with? Because I was just walking by, and I heard you mention 'Harkness?'"_

"_Oh, yeah, well you know Torchwood?"_

"Yes, I too would immediately start explaining my phone calls to a total stranger," Tasmin remarked.

"If you don't want others to overhear you shouldn't hold phone conversations in public."

"Still, would you answer someone who just asked you about something from your phone call or would you look at them funny?"

"Depends on the question, but I probably look at them funny no matter what the question."

The stranger explained that the Harkness he was talking about was head of Torchwood about three thousand years earlier. The Sue decided she had heard enough and ran off.

The agents looked at each other and shrugged.

"People have phone calls about the strangest things."

"True, but kindly write up this Sue for applying a contrived plot device to get the plot moving."

Emma chuckled and dug through her shoulder bag to find a notepad and pen. After she had made the note she took the remote activator to take the agents to the next chapter.

-oOo-

For the third time they found themselves in the same street. Emma mumbled something about _Pleasantville_. A SUV hovercar with the word Torchwood engraved in the paint hovered by. Closely followed by a running Sue. The road was crowded with cars. There, however, were no other pedestrians so the Sue was able to keep up with the car. The two agents followed suit.

The SUV pulled up in an alley and its passengers got out. The Sue hid in the shadows.

_But not smart enough to hide the code from Tasha were they?_

_Before the guy could type in the code, Tasha quickly got her hiding-pen out of her pocket and threw it in the opposite direction to where she was, so they would look over in that direction and give Tasha a chance to find her trioculars. She quickly unfolded them from the impossible position they could be folded up in. Thank heaven she lived in the fifty first century and not somewhere like the twenty first._

_God, the tech they had in those days!_

"But apparently the Torchwood people still use all the old stuff." Tasmin rolled her eyes. "Seriously, an identification **code**! You'd think the retina scan would be perfected by this time. Or the partial or full body scan, or a subdermal computer chip that can be read out. Anything that is a little more high tech and a more unique identifier than a number code!"

"I guess we can start tallying the number of times a contrived plot device is employed." Emma grinned. "Too bad we can only charge her once with it."

"Well," Tasmin made allowance, "perhaps we can charge her with each plot device individually."

"I bet, by the time we come to charging her, we want to do it as quickly as possible so we can kill her."

Tasmin hummed her agreement. The hum turned into a growl as the Sue saw the code and after the Torchwood people had gone into their secret lair the Sue got up, punched in the code and went into the lair as well.

The agents tried to quickly fly in after her. Emma managed, but Tasmin got stuck at the alley side of the wall. She rolled her eyes, glared at the Words and copied the code from them on to the keypad. The wall opened a third time and Tasmin went in. Emma met her on the other side and cheerfully slapped her on the shoulders. This did not improve Tasmin's mood.

Behind the wall was a long corridor with silver walls, a silver floor and bright white light. Their surroundings hurt their eyes. Tasmin groped around her back to reach her sun glasses in her duffel bag, but couldn't manage. Her wings were in the way. She growled under her breath about never again letting her partner choose the disguises. Emma shielded her eyes with her hand.

"The Sue's over there." Emma pointed ahead.

The Sue had stopped in the corridor. Just outside the visual range of a camera.

"Stupidity on the part of who ever installed the CCTV network of Torchwood also counts as a contrived plot device," Tasmin said putting a hand over her own eyes.

Emma grinned and reached into her bag to get her notepad, made the tally and returned the notepad to her bag. One of the Torchwood people shouted they were losing electricity and it effected the lights and CCTV. The lights started to flicker and the corridor became dimly lit.

_Tasha grinned, this was her lucky day._

"And she hasn't even met us yet," Emma chuckled.

Tasmin chuckled too. Meeting two PPC agents was surely the icing on the cake of any Sue's day.

The agents flew ahead of the Sue and entered a control room where the five people that had come from the SUV were gathered around a few computers that, because of the power failure, were all showing a black screen. One of the women explained how the Rift was working, in layman's terms.

"_DaVinci Code_ Movie moment," Emma snorted and grabbed her notepad from her bag. "I might as well keep this one in hand."

Tasmin nodded. She looked around the room and was not much impressed by it. Where the twenty-first century Torchwood Institute had been on the cutting edge of technology - thanks to their policy of 'if it's alien, it's ours' - Torchwood of the fifty-first century had hardly moved on. It might even be said it had technologically regressed. It seemed to be the dialectics of progress in action.

When the woman who gave exposition left the room to do some paper work, Tasmin first commented that probably wasn't an expression that had stuck around because it was so catchy, and then suggested going outside: Torchwood's power failure had also effected their air-conditioning system. Emma suggested they'd see how the air-conditioning at the Hub was functioning.

-oOo-

One step through the portal and the two agents found themselves at Torchwood Three. The portal materialized a few feet above the midsection water feature and Emma had to catch Tasmin or she would have made a splash. They perched themselves on the banister of one of the catwalks and watched the Torchwood Crew sitting at their workstations across the Hub. Tasmin wished there was a way she could check whether their fairy disguises still meant they were invisible. Canon characters would not be able to see them courtesy of the SEP field, but she wasn't entirely sure such a thing also worked on Jack. Invisible fairies, however, did work, she knew that.

Tasmin wrestled her duffel bag off her shoulders. "Want something to drink?" Tasmin held out a bottle of water. Emma smiled appreciatively.

"I see the Sue has gotten home." Emma took a swig from her water. "And gotten grounded."

_Tasha also had all of the information she had been able to find on Torchwood. Luckily, she knew how to break encryptions and get past firewalls and_

'_Classified Information' blocks. Courtesy of her older brother. She missed him so much. Her J-_

"Super hacker Sue," Emma commented.

"If that really were true she also would have been able to get herself past a more complicated security system than one blocked by a ten-digit code."

"That's still bothering you?"

"Kinda." Tasmin shrugged.

"Sounds like more than kinda." Emma checked her notepad. "How does 'not having thought more than five minutes about what a future society would be like' sound?"

"Sounds good." Tasmin bobbed her head in approval. Emma took a note and both turned their attention back to the Words.

_Meanwhile…._

_Three thousand years in Natasha Harkness's past,_

"Either I don't know what meanwhile means, or she doesn't know what meanwhile means," Emma said shaking her head.

"Meanwhile means at the same time. Meanwhile, on the other side of Gotham City The Joker got away."

"I'm having a drink, meanwhile, I got up this morning."

"Or something to that effect." Tasmin chuckled.

"I'm cracking jokes. Meanwhile, Owen is portrayed as a slacker."

"That sounds better."

Emma frowned.

"The use of meanwhile that is. Owen as a slacker should probably be noted as Owen bashing." Tasmin turned her attention from the Words to the scene before her.

Tosh had finished a computer program that allowed her to monitor Rift activity more closely. She had noted that the Rift was opening wider. Jack went into his office while the other Torchwood Crew members huddled around Tosh's computer.

"_Oi! I heard that!" yelled Jack from the depths of his office._

_The rest of the Torchwood team sniggered and then ducked as several pens came sailing towards their heads._

"A rather childish reaction from Jack."

"I don't know what it is with Jack, but for some reason authors think his mental age is about two decades off from his physical age. Perhaps we should do some canon measurements," Emma suggested.

"Canon's not going anywhere. And if they are it's probably in the wrong direction, I'm afraid. We can do measurements when the Sue is actually with them."

_The Torchwood team found themselves being thrown about like they were on a boat in the storm._

_It was several minutes later that the 'Earthquake' subsided, and by that time, three of the five Torchwood members were unconscious and the other two very battered and bruised..._

The earthquake also affected the two agents. They were thrown from their perch and when they found their bearings again, they found it weren't exactly their own bearings.

_Honestly, twenty-first century barbarians._

_Oh, there's Ianto saying some sarcastic comment abouut me. And sniggering people. Right that's it. I pick up some pens and chuck 'em as best I can aim through two doors and some bends._

"What the ..." Tasmin shook her head. She suddenly stopped when she noted the scenery flashing by her eyes was the insides of Jack's office. "How did that happen?" She brought her right hand up to her face, but stopped that mid-motion: the hand that was approaching was male and white, and she was neither. "What happened? What is this?"

"You remember that movie: _Being John Malkovich_? I think we're being Captain Jack Harkness. And we just chucked some pens out of the door, and are about to be hit by that earthquake again."

Emma was right. The earthquake shook them from Jack's head and landed them in the midsection water feature. Neither agent was amused.

Tasmin quickly turned to the Words to see if she could make out what had happened. Emma, on the other hand, flapped her wings and got herself out of the water.

"It seems there was a scene entirely from Jack's POV. Which in this case meant interior monologue," Tasmin told her partner as she got to her feet.

"Nice. What ever happened to using italics for interior monologue? Not that I can't see the attraction of being inside Captain Jack, or vice versa." She mumbled the last words and quickly made sure she was at least at arm's length from her partner. She smirked at the glare she was thrown. "But still, italics."

"Write her up, I'd say." Tasmin started flapping her wings and slowly raised herself back up to the catwalk, and back to her perch.

Emma sat down next to her a moment later. Down below in the Hub the Crew of Torchwood Three were picking themselves up and licking their wounds. Jack had a head wound, but didn't like it much that Owen wanted to examine it.

_Colourful language came in Gwen's direction from Jack's._

Words in German, English, French, purple and lime green came fluttering into the Hub. Emma pointed at them and laughed.

"I hate it when fics take metaphors, similes and euphemisms literally," Tasmin growled.

Tosh sat back behind her computer. Unlike in the fifty-first century, twenty-first century power systems weren't affected by an earthquake slash unstable Rift.

"By the twenty-fourth century the concepts of circuit breakers, fuses, and uninterruptible power supplies will have been lost," Tasmin muttered under her breath.

She narrowed her eyes as Tosh started reading out loud the information the computer had picked up on all the people falling through the Rift. There were people from Tudor times, Weevils, people from the thirtieth century, even from the fifty-first.

_Jack jumped and went white. "What did you say?"_

"That's what you get when you have a concussion and jump up." Emma shook her head. "The blood vessels of your skin contract, you turn pale and you faint."

"Jack is starting to get a very strange look in his eyes."

"It looks like were going to be Captain Jack again."

Tasmin reached over to her duffel bag which had been left behind on the catwalk and picked it up. She rummaged through it and emerged with a small device.

"I've set the Fic Location Follower to manual. We should be all right."

"Just in case I'm keeping my thumbs crossed."

"Uh, sure." Tasmin watched with interest as Emma alternated at quickly bringing her right thumb to left forefinger and her left thumb to her right forefinger.

The switch to manual seemed to work. While the fic showed the POV of each of the five employees of Torchwood Three in turn the two agents remained sat on the banister following the thoughts of Jack, Owen, Gwen, Tosh and Ianto from across the Hub, rather than form inside their heads. When all were done with their introspection they went back to work: Owen tended to Jack's head wound; Tosh and Gwen snuck peaks at them from their computers.

_Meanwhile, in the 51st century…._

"All dictionaries were recalled because of a faulty entry for the word 'meanwhile'," Tasmin remarked.

The Sue was also experiencing an earthquake. Then the chapter ended, with some author's notes.

_Ha ha ha!! Cliffie!!_

"I hate authors who are trying to be cute in their author's notes," Tasmin growled.

"We're all going on a Summer Holiday," a voice sang.

The agents frowned and slowly turned their heads to face a little man standing on the catwalk behind them. He was about two and a half feet tall, had a full head of dark hair and a twinkle in his eyes. He sang to them.

"No more working for a week or two."

Emma jumped onto the catwalk and grabbed the little man. He stopped singing and gave her a startled look.

"Look, Tasmin, our very own living doll!"

"Got myself a cryin', talkin', sleepin', walkin'," Cliffie began to sing.

"Livin' Doll," Emma hollered.

"Got to do my best to please her just cos she's a--"

"Livin' Doll!"

"Shut up!"

Emma and Cliffie both gave Tasmin a startled look.

"You!" She pointed at Emma. "Let go of the little man. You!" She pointed at Cliffie. "Stop singing. And that goes double for you." She pointed back to Emma.

A moment later Emma and Tasmin were sitting on their perch again the little man between them, gagged. He had made an attempt at singing when he climbed onto the banister. He had been unable to duck Tasmin's clutching hands quick enough. The agents turned their attention to the Words as the action of the story continued in the fifty-first century, and they were still at the Hub.

The earthquake forced the Sue to run out of the house, where she saw the Torchwood car pass, and decided to run after it once again.

_Tasha took one look and began to run after it. A J.Harkness was in the 21st century, working for Torchwood in Cardiff…_

"I'll accept it if she says that Harkness is a rare name, but surely there is more than one J. Harkness in all the Universe in all of Time?" Emma shook her head. "I mean: Jack, John and Joe are three of the most common first names!"

"Welcome to the world of Sue logic. Or rather, the absence there of."

After the Sue corrected herself for the grammar she used she was pulled into the Rift.

The two agents smiled at each other.

"She's here," Tasmin said.

"Let the games begin," Emma added.

The games began with wailing computers and flashing red lights. A security breach had been detected. Jack wanted to destroy the computers, but Tosh spoke in defense of them.

"So far, Tosh seems to be the only one that is in character," Emma remarked.

"Sure, but how hard is it to write a technology geek with dry wit?" Tasmin retorted.

Jack suggested that someone had come through the Rift and ended up in the Hub. It took some convincing before the rest of the team believed him, but then they all went in search of the intruder. Collectively.

"Because ever since _Countrycide_ they know it's a bad idea to split the team up in smaller entities," Tasmin explained to Emma, who listened intently. "Even if you can cover more ground that way, or make it less likely that the entire team would get captured."

"Let's go with them."

The two agents got up from their positions and flew after the team.

Not much later the team found a man lying sprawled out on the floor. Jack went catatonic. Owen, Tosh and Gwen hurried forward to see to the guy on the ground.

_Ianto, after muttering something about coffee, went upstairs,_

The agents watched him go.

"I'm not doing character measurements on him," Emma said. "The CAD would probably not even find enough character in him to give a reliable reading."

"That is if it hadn't gotten overheated and exploded after registerings Jack's OOCness."

Owen searched the man for identification.

'_Torchwood' was written very bold and clear on it. As well as 'James Smith'. The guys name, obviously. The material felt strange to Owen, but he quickly dismissed that thought. The expiry date was also on there._

_It was: "Enero 54th '13"._

"Ugh, why not write the date properly? Number of day, number of month, full length of year."

"Another contrived plot device," Tasmin growled. "Now Jack can show of his superior future knowledge, by telling by the material where this guy is coming from."

"I wonder what 54 Enero translates to in a 365 day year," Emma mussed to herself.

"Why say that Owen didn't recognize the material? Is he the materials expert? Does he recognize whether something is made out of PP, PET, PVC, PE, HDPE, LDPE, ABS, PMMA, PTFE, PS, PC, PLA?"

"The Sue was born on 33 Enero 5005. She's sixteen. So if this is one of the Torchwood people she saw before, he's either carrying ID that expired seven years earlier, or will be valid for nearly a hundred years."

Tasmin turned her head to her partner. "Sues and maths, it never was a happy marriage."

As predicted, Jack knew immediately where the man was coming from.

_"Let's just say I, er, umm, recognise the…'card'."_

"_How?" asked Gwen._

_This was the one question Jack had been hoping would not be asked._

"Then don't give any reason for Gwen to ask that question." Tasmin narrowed her eyes.

"Hmm. Jack, without the personality altering concussion, would have said: 'Tosh's computer said we were getting incoming from Tudor times and the fifty-first century. I recognize this material as not being from Tudor times.' Thus leaving Gwen baffled."

"And her question answered."

Ianto called in to tell that the computer had detected someone with unidentified technology on them. Jack said they would investigate.

Tasmin suggested taking a portal to the outside world, rather than follow the Torchwood Crew through the Hub.

-oOo-

It was dark outside. There were some street lights that gave off an oily yellow light. Emma and Tasmin flew across Roald Dahl Plass. Emma had misassessed the location where to open the portal. The full Torchwood Crew had emerged from the Tourist Office and soon after turned into a backstreet that wasn't as well lit as the main streets.

_As they walked towards where the reading was coming from, Jack's heart sped up, and once more, hopeful thoughts began to enter his mind. He couldn't help it. Could it be someone from his family this time?_

"Sure," Tasmin panted. She was a long-distance runner; she was in good shape. Flying just wasn't her thing. "The chances of that are only slightly less than a million to one."

"That's too bad," Emma replied, who was not at all out of breath from all the flying. "Cause if it had been exactly a chance of a million to one it would have been possible." She chuckled.

"Who taught you maths?"

"Pterry."

Tasmin rolled her eyes. She would have smacked her partner, but she just didn't have the strength for it. Emma suddenly put her hand out and stopped Tasmin.

"They've found her."

_As the team got to the girl, Jack's heart leapt._

_It was Tasha. His sister._

"Guess it was a million to one chance after all." Emma chuckled again, ignoring Tasmin's glare.

Jack nearly went catatonic again, but managed to tell his surprised team that this was his sister. As they all stared at him, the Sue woke up.

_Jack and Natasha Harkness simply stared at each other. Then Tasha got to her feet, as did Jack._

_Tasha burst into tears and threw her arms around her brother, who hugged her back tightly._

"Is anyone else bothered by the twenty year age gap, or is it just me?" Tasmin asked.

"Oh, I think Jack is a lot more than twenty years older than the Sue." Emma saw Tasmin's scowl deepen from abuse partner to torture partner. She hastened to add: "The age gap bothers me too. I'm sure there is a logical explanation for that."

Tasmin's scowl deepened to slowly torture partner.

_Gwen was surprised as to how similar the two of them looked. They both had the same hair, same eyes, same faces._

"The sixteen-year-old Sue has the face of a thirty-five-year-old man. No amount of beauty products are going to help that," Emma said. She glanced at Tasmin to see whether the scowl had lifted any. Not discernibly so.

The Sue not only was a female version of Jack in looks, she also had his accent and even the same pose to show annoyance.

"I wonder if this Sue knows that it is not possible to make a female clone with male source material."

Still, no smile from Tasmin.

"Are you going to ignore me for the rest of this mission?"

No reply.

"Works for me." Emma shrugged and got her notepad from her bag. She wrote up a few charges for the Sue. She put the notepad back. Tasmin still hadn't as much as twitched. "I suggest we sit the rest of this one out in a nice pub or something. I'm in need of a hot drink." She tried a half smile on Tasmin. "Oh, no, we can't. Cliffie's still at the Hub."

This finally got a reaction from Tasmin. "Very irresponsible of you."

Emma waved it away. "He would have been a burden to carry around with us." She got the remote activator to open a portal back to the Hub.

-oOo-

When the agents returned to the Hub Ianto, Tosh, Owen and Gwen were sitting in the conference room, cups of coffee in front of them. Emma and Tasmin quickly took their places on the banister again, Cliffie in between them.

"Has Ianto done anything else in this fic other than make coffee?" Tasmin asked.

"Not on my watch," Emma replied after a few moments' consideration.

"I was afraid so."

Jack and the Sue were in his office. Where the Sue noted that Jack was unusually confused and inarticulate.

"Well, at least she noticed too."

"I don't think that will exonerate her from causing that situation."

Jack gave the Sue a hug and the both of them laughed and cried together. Owen came to get them, because the rest of the team were dying to hear some gossip. Jack thought that now was the time to tell his team that he too was from the future.

"_We're from the fifty-first century." said Jack, looking at the floor._

_Eventually he looked up to see four people gawping at him._

The two agents were gaping too.

"I think I like canon Jack better," Emma said.

Tasmin closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Of course you do," she said sweetly. "That's why we are Protectors of the Plot Continuum."

"_Huh?" said Owen intelligently._

"_Just what he said lamo." cut in Tasha, smirking at Owen._

"If there was any chance that we would think the Owen bashing was an incident," Tasmin indicated to Emma to get her notepad, "here is proof it wasn't."

Jack continued his story. He gave his team the short version: he was working for the Time Agency, went rogue when he found two years of his memories missing ...

"That always puzzled me," Emma said. "How does he know it's two years? He traveled through time. Did he have a solid anchor in time? And was it like: I remember February fifth of 5046, but not February sixth of that year."

"We're not here to question the logic of Russell T. Davies," Tasmin cut in.

Jack continued by telling about his travels with the Doctor and Rose, and about the day he died, but didn't stay dead.

"That knock he got on his head, must have been really, really hard," Emma said. She made a note on the charge list she was keeping. "Jack has forgotten who he is."

The two agents watched as the others let the news of Jack's immortality sink in by cleaning up the Hub. Tasha helped by complaining about backward technology, which Jack said was her cue to be taken to bed. He carried her off to his room.

Emma petted Cliffie on the head. "Do you know any lullabies?" Cliffie nodded. "Want to sing them to the Sue?" Cliffie nodded more vigorously. "Let's go then." Emma picked up Cliffie.

Tasmin grabbed Cliffie by his leg and pulled him back down. "Don't even dare think about it. We're going ahead to when she wakes up."

"Know any wake up songs?" Emma asked Cliffie.

"Give me the remote activator." Tasmin held out her hand. Emma handed it over reluctantly. Tasmin opened up a portal. Grabbing their belongings and Cliffie the agents went through.

-oOo-

The agents looked down the hatch into Jack's bedroom. Tasha was sitting up in the bed; Jack had just thrown a pillow at her to wake her up.

"_It's 9:30 darlin'," said Jack, deliberately imitating his old Gran, who had been a Saturian._

"_Ah, alright, love." Responded Tasha, imitating their Grandpa, who had been half human and half Berendian (from Berendia IV)._

"Right, earlier she mentioned taking history lessons form Star Wars. Now she adds insult to injury and also took her biology lessons from space movies," Tasmin said. "Don't kids these days get taught proper biology anymore? The one that says that species per definition can't crossbreed."

"You know, if one of their parents had been alien, they would have been sterile, and we would at least not have to worry about either of them sprouting off-spring."

"I sincerely hope that this story is not going anywhere near the direction of having off-spring."

Emma and Tasmin quickly jumped out of the way as the Sue started up the ladder. She then told Jack she wanted to go clothes shopping. Jack didn't want her to go alone, but the Sue won that argument and left on her own, Ianto on her tail. After the Sue had gone past the cogwheel door, Jack froze in his position at the door.

Emma gave him a curious look. "Did he go catatonic again?"

"No, I think it's because the Sue didn't give him anything to do in her absence." Tasmin scanned the Words. "And he's too out of character to think of anything to do for himself."

"Talking of out of character, I think this Sue got a dose of that medicine too."

"You, what?"

"I mean, not so long ago this girl was pining over how much she was missing her brother. Now she finally sees him again after many months, and she goes shopping on her own. Even after her brother has said he'll go with her."

"Sue's a big girl she doesn't need her big brother baby sitting."

"Yes, that would be the bottom line of her argument why she could go shopping alone in a time and a town she has never been. But how big a drag would Jack have to be to not be a fun companion to go shopping with? I'd take him shopping. I go shopping with my dad, and he much rather sit down somewhere and have a coffee."

"I take it you shop at places that serve coffee."

"You take correctly." Emma took her notepad from her bag to add this charge to her growing list.

"Grab hold of something; there's a time rift coming." Tasmin grabbed hold of the handles on Jack's safe.

Emma quickly jumped down the hatch and clasped the ladder. A strong wind picked up and Tasmin held on to the safe with all her might. Time rifts felt much stronger indoors than outdoors. When the wind died down five and a half hours had passed. Emma climbed back into the room and shook her head.

"What a rush. Oh, Cliffie." Emma rushed over to Jack's desk. Cliffie had not been secure when the time rift started and had been flung against the desk. He looked like he was about to cry. Emma wrapped her arms around him and slowly rocked him back and forth, comforting him.

Tasmin rolled her head around to loosen her neck muscles. Jack was still standing in the door way. He hadn't moved at all.

The Sue returned to the Hub; this brought Jack back to life. She had bought many items, but seemed to have shaken of Ianto. The alarm on Tosh's computer went off, and as she explained what it meant, Ianto snuck back into the Hub.

"_It's a weevil." said Tosh._

"_Oh, is that it?" said Jack disappointedly._

"_No…hang on….five weevils."_

"_One each for you." said Ianto, grinning._

"Now why would Ianto say a thing like that?" Tasmin asked.

"There's five people in the Hub other than himself," Emma replied. She gave Cliffie a kiss on his head and a light pat. Then she put him down on the couch.

"Yes, but why would he assign a Weevil to the Sue? A sixteen-year-old he has just met the other day."

"I think it's a toss up between Ianto OOC and the Sue wanting to play hero." Emma made another note on her pad.

Jack gave the Sue a gun while waving away the neutrally put objection Gwen had by saying that the Sue had had training with a stun gun to defend herself from nasty creatures.

"Yet, the gun he gives her is going to fire bullets," Emma said.

"Not to mention that a stun gun is not the most appropriate weapon to ward of nasty beasties, as it requires making contact with the skin," Tasmin explained. "You'd think a longer ranged weapon would be used on nasty beasties."

Jack, Tosh, Owen, Gwen and the Sue left the Hub. Emma threw a pitiful look at Ianto and opened a portal to go to the Weevil situation.

-oOo-

The sight they got when they reentered the fic was not pretty. Five Weevils had cornered three people. Then the Torchwood Crew plus auxiliary came in. The Weevils forgot all about the three unarmed people and went for the five that were armed. Owen shot one in the leg.; he got slashed in his arm in return. Tosh and the Sue took out a Weevil. Jack got slashed in his face. The Sue shot one Weevil trying to get to her brother. That was enough for Jack; he had his sister locked in the SUV.

"Is that smart to take the one person on your team that takes out one of the baddies out of the fight?" Emma posed a rhetorical question.

"Contrived plot device," Tasmin grinned, which was not a pretty sight on a fairy by any means.

Jack shot the last two Weevils, and let the Sue out of the car.

Only Emma and Tasmin took stock of the carnage that had been done.

"Still think we should have gone in as Weevils?" Tasmin asked.

"If we had, we could have avenged our brethren."

"_You know," said Tasha, looking around at the rest of the team, "He followed me whenever I went out until I was about twelve in case "something happened"!"_

Tasmin and Emma turned around to the Sue when they heard her point out that her brother was overprotective.

"Besides that overprotectiveness is disproved by the fact he takes her Weevil hunting," Tasmin said. "Jack is twenty years older than you! He was busy fighting wars and joining Time Agencies when you were a kid!" she shouted at the Sue.

Emma put a hand on her partner's shoulder. "You are starting to draw attention to yourself."

Tasmin nodded and swallowed. It wasn't often she let herself go like that.

The Sue had thrown a look in their direction, but was quickly distracted again as the boy who had been under attack by the Weevils earlier stepped up to her. The Sue immediately put on a flirty voice. The boy introduced himself as Rory Smith.

"Smith, Smith. I know it's a common last name, but it's an unwritten rule that to avoid confusion you don't give characters the same name unless they are related," Emma said.

"Don't jinx this," Tasmin warned.

_Rory looked at them. Dishevelled as they were, and in Jack's case, bloodstained._

"Owen, who got cut in the arm, managed to not bleed on himself." Tasmin smirked.

Rory asked for the Sue's phone number, and she wrote her cell phone number with a pen on his hand. Then he walked away. The two agents stared after him without speaking. Emma broke the silence first.

"She's been here a day." Emma shook her head before she continued. "In that time she has slept and gone shopping, yet she knows how to use all kinds of twenty-first century technology that may not exist anymore in the year 5021. Such as hand guns that have recoil, ball point pens, cell phones. She actually mentioned cell phones don't exist anymore in that time."

"I guess she has bought one here."

"Yeah, right. She's sixteen and hasn't got a valid ID, at least none that was mentioned, she can't get a mobile phone in this century. She needs an adult signing for it, and she made Jack stay at home."

Tasmin chuckled. "I guess 'not having thought for more than five minutes about the twenty-first century society' is another charge."

"Let's go charge her before that boy turns into a full blown doting Gary Stu." Emma turned around, but found that the Torchwood SUV had already left. The carnage and the two other humans that had been under attack had also disappeared. Emma looked at Tasmin and got a shrug in reply. She took the remote activator from her bag and set the coordinates.

-oOo-

Back at the Hub a few days had passed. Jack had been teaching the Sue about twenty-first century technology and decided it was time for a pop quiz. Tasmin and Emma flew past them unnoticed into Jack's office. Cliffie was still sitting on the couch, looking very unhappy and slightly nauseous. Emma quickly gave him a comforting hug. She dug into her bag and found a banana which she offered him as a peace offering.

Tasmin took her Beretta 92SB from her duffel bag and checked the magazine. "Let's rock," she said as she walked out of Jack's office. Emma nodded and followed.

Gwen was showing the Sue how to use twenty-first century make-up.

"Oi, over here," Emma hollered.

The Sue quickly turned her head around and got lipstick smeared all over her right cheek. "Who, what are you?" she stammered as she saw the two agents who were now full fletched fairies.

"Fairies," Jack said as he caught sight of the two monstrous appearances before him. He frowned as he noted one of them was sporting a shoulder bag and the other a semi-automatic.

"We want a word with you." Emma pointed at the Sue. She stepped up to her, grabbed her by the shoulder and flew out into the middle of the Hub, just a few feet underneath the ceiling.

"What are they doing?" Gwen asked a little frantically. "Is your sister a Chosen One?"

"No," Tasmin answered. "We're just picking her out."

Jack reached for his gun, but Tasmin quickly pointed hers at him.

"Do that and I'll give you a very nasty headache."

Jack seemed to consider this for a moment, then returned his gun to his holster. Tasmin nodded and made a running leap over the banister. Just in time she remembered to start flapping her wings. Emma in the mean time had wrapped her legs around the Sue in order to hold on to the Sue yet have her hands free to get the charge sheet from her bag.

"Hi, I'm Tasmin," Tasmin said as she was at eye-level with the Sue. "That's Emma."

Emma scratched the Sue on her head to make her presence known. The Sue struggled to get out of Emma's grip.

"Careful there, it's a long way down," Emma said. "And you're good, but I doubt you're made of rubber."

"We're Protectors of the Plot Continuum. Emma will now read you your charges."

"Right, Natasha Rose Harkness, nice touch on the name, by the way."

"Thanks," the Sue said a little hesitant. She had stopped struggling and was now gripping Emma's legs tightly.

Emma put on her serious, charging voice and started reading out the charges. "We charge you with offenses against the plot: you used many contrived plot devices to keep the story going, while the story would have worked excellently without them. We charge you with not thinking about what a future society would be like for more than five minutes."

"I have thought about it for more than five minutes."

"Well, it doesn't show."

"You're constantly complaining about how backwards twenty-first century technology is, but all you've shown is that it is more advanced than the technology used in the fifty-first century," Tasmin said.

"My partner has a gripe with you about technology."

"Not just technology. I also have a gripe with you about learning your history, your biology and your science from Star Wars and other such movies."

"Just history," the Sue protested. "And only as an example of what people in the twentieth century thought space was like."

"Sure." Tasmin gave the Sue a smile as if she was taking that charge of the list. "That would be like kids these days would learn about Jules Verne in their history class."

"Actually, we did that," Emma said.

Tasmin and the Sue both looked up at her.

"I went to one of those alternative schools. Half the kids in my class couldn't spell their way out of a paper bag, but, boy, did we have fun."

"Moving on. Charges for character abuse."

"Right." Emma tucked her notepad under her arm and crossed her arms. She stared down the Sue looking at the back of her head. "I can do this from the heart. We charge you with making Jack OOC; Jack is not insecure and angsty. Tormented yes, angsty no, insecure not during his lifetime. We charge you with reducing Ianto's character to the part of walking coffee machine; this is a man that built a life support system for a Cyberwoman. He can do more than make coffee. It was not his brain that Lisa took. Cut him some slack. Do you even know that Torchwood people on several occasions brought coffee into the Hub from the outside? You even have him thinking inane thoughts about making coffee. It was like hearing Homer Simpsons' thoughts in that episode where he was on the jury. 'Boy, I know you can't hear my thoughts. Poompa-poompa-poom. Poompa-poompa-poom'." Emma did an imitation of Homer.

"Emma! Moving on."

"Uh, right." Emma went back to her charging voice. "We charge you with bashing Owen. So, you don't like him. That does not give you the right to portray a man that is dedicated to his job as a slacker, and to only let him make snide remarks. Owen gives witty retorts, except to you, and that is wrong."

"There isn't that much you can wittily retort to an ad hominem argument like 'lamo'," Tasmin grinned.

"You want me to drop this charge?" Emma asked calmly.

"No, no. Keep that and keep charging."

"Good." Emma consulted her notepad. "Let's see, plot abuse, character abuse. Abuse of the term Point of View to show people's thoughts. That's what italics are for. Further we charge you with wanting to be a hero: you break into a Torchwood Institute; you go Weevil hunting; you go shopping on your own in a strange town."

"So? I can handle myself."

"So, you're a Mary Sue."

"Am not."

"Am too. You were asked for your phone number by a guy who had just been scared shitless. No man asks for a woman's phone number with his underwear full of number two."

"Unless that woman is a Mary Sue," Tasmin said.

"QED," Emma added. "Do you understand these charges?"

"What? No."

"Doesn't matter. Your punishment is death. Do you have any last words?" Tasmin got her Beretta ready.

"You can't kill me." The Sue started to struggle again.

"She's right. I can't shoot her at this short range. I'd get her blood on me."

"I have an idea. You hold her."

Emma thrust the Sue in Tasmin's direction. Tasmin grabbed hold of the struggling Sue. Emma flexed her fingers then forced her right hand into the Sue's mouth and down her throat. It didn't take long for the Sue to stop struggling. Emma retracted her hand. Rose petals fell from the Sue's mouth.

"That was disgusting," Tasmin commented.

"And it's going to get even more disgusting." Emma swooped down. A moment later she returned and squirted protein sauce over the Sue. "Bombs away."

Tasmin let go. The Sue fell down and about one point seven seconds later made impact with the concrete floor. Tasmin and Emma looked down at her.

"What were you thinking of?"

"I was thinking feeding time for the pterodactyl."

"It's nocturnal. It's a few minutes past three."

"This place doesn't catch daylight. How would it now?"

Tasmin paused to think about this. Her thoughts were interrupted by a loud screech. The pterodactyl circled the Hub and then swooped down to the Sue. The Sue was too big for her to pick up in one so she started hacking at it to make smaller pieces.

"Right." Emma dropped the bottle of protein sauce. "That's that taken care of." She looked over at the workstations where the Torchwood Crew were slowly starting to become themselves again. "I'm a little surprised none of them has tried to stop us."

"They couldn't have. The Sue had made it impossible for them to undertake any action without her right there with them."

The agents flew over to them and landed next to Gwen's workstation.

"Attention please," Tasmin shouted. Five heads turned to her. "We'd like to know where James Smith is."

"Who?" Gwen asked.

"Boy, they get back into character quicker than I had thought," Emma commented.

"No, I think this is a case of truly having forgotten. James Smith, he was one of the people that came through the Rift. You took him to Med."

"Fuck." Owen, who had been lying rather leisurely behind his computer, jumped up. "He's still in Med." Owen ran down the stairs.

The agents exchanged a look and quickly followed.

-oOo-

Owen pulled the plugs of his stethoscope from his ears. "Shit. He's dead." Owen rubbed a hand in his face and through his hand. "I can't believe I lost a patient due to neglect."

"It wasn't your fault," Emma said.

"He needed medical attention; I'm the doctor; I didn't give him medical attention; it is my fault he died."

"No." Emma shook her head lightly and put a hand on his arm. She pulled it away quickly when she realized that she still looked like a monstrous fairy. "It was the Sue. She made you negligent. She's gone now, and you will become a good doctor again."

"And we will take him away, so you will never be reminded of this episode again."

Owen humphed as the two agents started pulling James Smith off the bed. Emma opened a portal and grabbed James by his feet.

"Shit, Cliffie." Emma dropped James' feet and rushed out of the room.

"Not again." Tasmin sighed and rolled her eyes.

"And your duffel bag," Emma shouted from the corridor.

Tasmin threw her head back and stared at the ceiling as she took a deep breath.

"It's a good thing you've got your wings attached, otherwise you might forget those too," Owen remarked.

"Shouldn't you be upstairs making sexual innuendos at your co-workers?"

"I thought for a change I'd make sexual innuendos at a non-sexual being." Owen smirked at her. Tasmin tried to glare back, but Owen didn't seem impressed.

"Right, got them." Emma came rushing back in with Cliffie under one arm and the duffel bag under the other. She assessed the situation. "Uh, you'll have to drag him through on your own. Bye, Owen." Emma hopped through the portal, followed by a grumbling Tasmin dragging a dead James Smith.

-oOo-

Tasmin dropped James to the floor as soon as she had pulled him all the way into the office. She was glad to note she was herself again. "He's dead," she said. "He can go into the incinerator. He isn't, so he can't." She nodded at Cliffie.

Emma put the duffel bag and Cliffie on the ground. She knelt down beside the little man and removed his gag. He opened his mouth and was about to start singing, but one slightly raised eye-brow in Tasmin's face made him shut his mouth again.

**Beep**

"You have got to be kidding! We just got in."

"I think it's something else this time." Tasmin walked over to the console and tapped the keys. "It's an invitation: Mara and Isaiah are throwing a Welcome Back party."

"Who?"

"Mara and Isaiah, Department of Technical Errors. I can't believe those guys aren't dead." Tasmin smirked. "Are you going?"

"Sure. Always love a good party." Emma picked up Cliffie. "And this time I can take care of the live entertainment."

"Good. Then I'll dispose of this guy." Tasmin prodded James in his side with her foot.

"Aren't you coming to the party?"

"I try to avoid places where insanity gathers."

Emma gave her a puzzled look. "Then what are you doing at the PPC?"

"Target practice," Tasmin replied.

"Right." Emma turned around and quickly left the office.

Tasmin wondered if there was somewhere she could get a cart from to move James.

-oOo-

_A/N: Protectors of the Plot Continuum go into stories and take out the elements that disrupt the canon continuum. Most often these are Mary Sues. As was the case here. This story had some gaping plot holes and grave out of character behavior, but also some great ideas behind it.  
- Someone from the future in the twenty-first century is a reverse of _Out of Time_ and can be a great story of discovery. You know, bananas could be extinct by the end of the century.  
- Jack sees his sister means room for disclosure of his past and character development (and by that I don't mean that Jack becomes insecure and angsty)._


	2. oh god, Strawberry Lovin'

_A/N: Protectors of the Plot Continuum was founded by Jay and Acacia. Excerpts taken form _oh god_ by this gurl is mad (first scene), and _Strawberry Lovin'_ by lil-miss-harkness (third scene).These two stories have a relationship that didn't quite work in common._

-oOo-

On her way back to her response center Emma suddenly stumbled over a fire hose that was lying across the hall. She was surprised. She didn't even know the PPC had any fire prevention measures. She followed the hose along to see where the fire was. There she got another surprise: the fire hose lead into her own response center.

"Tasmin?" she asked stepping over the hose into her office. "What's going on?"

"Just a little problem that needs to be fixed. It'll only be a moment." Tasmin tapped some keys on the console and a portal opened.

Emma peered into the fic cautiously; she was not prepared to go into a fic. Gwen and Jack were standing in Jack's office, both half-naked, in a close embrace. They were kissing each other and stroking each other's bodies. Emma glanced over at the Words to find out what was going on.

_Then gwen put her hands down jacks pants and played around she heard a little moan from jack and smiled as he was doing the same._

"Step aside," Tasmin said.

Emma did as she was told, still wondering what was going on. Tasmin stood on the threshold of the portal and opened the nozzle of the fire hose. She hit Gwen and Jack with a burst of water. The two of them quickly broke off their embrace. Gwen clasped her arms over her chest and turned her back to the PPC agent. Jack stood up to full length and glared at Tasmin. Tasmin turned the water off.

"Put your clothes back on," she snarled.

"What the hell?" Jack replied.

"You needed to be hosed down." Tasmin stepped back and the portal closed.

"What was that all about?" Emma asked as Tasmin started gathering up the fire hose to return it to its proper place.

"They needed to be hosed down," Tasmin replied simply.

-oOo-

"What was that all about?" Emma asked again as her partner returned from stowing away the fire hose.

"They needed to be hosed down," Tasmin growled.

"Yes, you said that already. Why did they need to be hosed down?"

"Gwen felt bad because of Rhys so Jack decided to cheer her up by having sex with her."

"Good plot."

Tasmin glared at her partner.

"For a porn movie," Emma added. "It's not like anyone is going to believe Jack is coming over to repair the washing machine."

Tasmin continued glaring at her partner. Emma did not buckle under her stare. Tasmin sighed and then turned away, muttering: "why do I always get the idiots?"

"Due to PPC's policy of partnering people with their polar opposite," Emma replied cheerfully.

Tasmin growled again and went into the bathroom. She wanted to go for a run.

**BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP**

"Incoming!" Emma shouted.

Obviously, Tasmin thought. She walked back into the response center. "What have we got?" she asked in a tired voice.

"More Gwen-Jack naughtiness. But no porn so you can leave the hose here."

"Wouldn't fit in my purse anyway."

"That's the spirit." Emma smiled at her partner. "Ooh, let's disguise ourselves as that sex alien."

"I think there's quite enough lusting in this fic without us adding to it." Tasmin tapped a few keys on the console and a portal opened. She grabbed her duffel bag.

"I don't think we would be adding to the lusting disguised as sex aliens," Emma said as she followed Tasmin through the portal. "That would only work if we went into someone's body, and we can't."

-oOo-

"Pizza delivery people?" Emma exclaimed as soon as she'd stepped through the portal and taken a look at their disguises. "This is _Torchwood_. It's a _Doctor Who_ spin-off. You could have chosen any alien from _Doctor Who_, if you're not comfortable with the _Torchwood_ ones, yet you choose: pizza delivery people."

"They come into the Hub all the time."

"Once. Once one came into the Hub. And Gwen once. No more."

"Besides, I thought you wanted to stay in keeping with the porn theme."

"Good point. Pizza delivery, very porn." Emma grinned. Her grin got bigger when her partner pulled her into the kitchenette by her arm. "Tasmin," she said with a cheeky smirk on her face. She flexed her eyebrows.

Tasmin ignored her partner. She cautiously peered into the Hub. "Gwen and Jack might be replaced by Sues; they could see us," she whispered.

Normally, a PPC agent is covered from canon eyes and ears by a Someone Else's Problem field. This field, however, does not work on Mary-Sues or Canon!Sues, because PPC agents are their problem.

Emma nodded and got behind her partner. She looked over her partner's head into the Hub.

Gwen and Owen were disagreeing about what kind of food to order in. This lead to Jack joking that Owen didn't look like a pizza. Gwen wanted to know what that made Jack.

"If Jack were a food what would he be?" Tasmin growled.

"Grilled pepper steak," Emma said. "Tough on the outside, soft on the inside, hot and melts on the tongue."

Tasmin turned her head a little so she could look at her partner. "You've given this way too much thought already."

Emma smirked again.

"_Well..." Gwen replied. "I have always though that strawberries have a certain...sex appeal."_

"Strawberries?" Emma queried. "Why are strawberries red? Because they're embarrassed about their pimples. What's sexy about pimples?"

"Embarrassed about their pimples?"

"It loses some meaning in the translation."

"I guess it's one of those jokes for which you had to be there."

"Like this fic?"

"I'm here and I don't think it's funny." Tasmin nodded at the three people near the boardroom door. "That's supposed to be a sexually suggestive conversation? I've had more of an indecent proposal from my tax form."

_She grinned up at him. "Something to do with the way they, um, taste, I think..."_

_Owen sighed. "Is this going to go on forever? Will you two just get a bloody room and snog?"_

"You do income tax? You have an income? More income than volunteers' allowance?"

"Shouldn't you be writing down charges about now? We'll still have Sues to charge before this mission is over."

"Right." Emma pulled a pad and pen from her shoulder bag and jotted down a few charges.

Gwen received a text message from Jack asking her to come into his office; he might have strawberries for her. Gwen quickly went.

"Ow." Both agents were knocked against the kitchen cabinets by a sudden tremor.

"Time rift," Tasmin stated and picked herself up.

"Why can't these Sues use scene breaks?" Emma scrambled up and rubbed her head. "How hard is it to hit the enter key, hit the hyphen key about six times and hit enter key again?"

"I'm guessing less hard than kitchen cabinets."

"Quite. Let's see what they're up to." Emma set off in the direction of Jack's office.

Tasmin wanted to protest, but she couldn't do that without shouting and she didn't want to shout. As quietly as she could she ran after her partner.

A moment later both agents were crouching down beside the hatch to Jack's room. They were looking down on a groggily waking up Gwen.

_Gwen woke up slightly out of breath and in unfamiliar surroundings. Where could she be? Her memories of the last few hours were unclear, and she couldn't remember going home._

"Post-coital memory loss," Tasmin stated. "Never had that myself."

"Sex, you mean?" Emma asked.

Tasmin let out a short growl. Emma flashed her a toothy grin.

"Just think of this as showing in a non-expletive way that Jack shagged her brains out."

"Thanks, now I'm still stuck with that image."

Emma smirked in reply.

"Charge: Jack and Gwen having sex while they're both canonically involved with other people."

"Gwen's involved with two other people. It's not like she's canonically monogamous. And Jack's a flirt."

"That doesn't mean he would have sex on a whim with a co-worker. Neither does it mean that for Gwen."

"True, no whim sex."

Gwen pondered about the events that had lead up to her waking up in Jack's bed.

_He was definitely the best she'd ever been with._

"Best what?" It slipped Tasmin's tongue before she had realized it, and she quickly threw her partner a don't-you-dare-answer-that look.

Emma gave her her best innocent look. "Best pillow fluffer, best skirt folder, best Pacman player, best Grand Theft Auto racer, best hair braider, best phone book quoter, best boss. I could go on for a while."

"I like hair braider," Tasmin said. "Jack's done Gwen's hair very nicely." Tasmin nodded down. Both agents chuckled as Gwen brushed a handful of tiny braids over her shoulder as she tried to quietly get out of bed.

The agents experienced another time rift. This one the force of a medium sized Typhoon. When Tasmin and Emma regained consciousness they found out they were at the other side of the Hub and several weeks had passed.

_Gwen had broken up with Rhys, so her and Jack were 'official', and they didn't hide their relationship from the rest of the team._

"Gwen had broken up with Rhys? I hope the actual break up took more than six words." Tasmin tried to untangle her limbs from her partner's and from her duffel bag.

"Can be done in four: 'Rhys, we're through. Gwen'. Send it by text and Rhys can't even rebuttal." Emma found some leverage from the wall and pushed herself up.

Tasmin had also gotten up. She dusted herself off and without waiting for her partner set off across the Hub. Despite her long stride Emma had trouble keeping up. Not seeing anyone else anywhere in the Hub, the two agents went back to Jack's office. They looked at the Words to get up to speed again with the story.

Gwen had moved in with Jack, and he kept her up most of the night.

"And because she doesn't commute anymore, she can't catch up on her sleep on the way over to work," Emma joked.

"People can actually die of exhaustion," Tasmin pointed out.

"Guess we can scratch best boss of the list of possibilities then."

Tasmin shrugged in reply.

Despite the sleep deprivation, Gwen and Jack were a great couple.

_However, the great atmosphere didn't last much longer. Something was troubling Gwen, and Jack could sense it._

_After a few days, and her mood wasn't improving, he told her to meet him in his office for a "talk". By office, she knew that he meant the room below it,_

The agents quickly hid behind Jack's desk to let Jack and Gwen climb into the room below it. Then they crawled back to the hatch and looked down it into Jack's bedroom. Jack's single bed was still there, but was now accompanied by a huge sofa.

"How on Earth did they get that thing down this hole?" Emma asked.

"The Sues must've also stretched the material boundaries of this world."

Gwen sat on Jack's lap and he tried to kiss her, but she pushed him away. She had something important to say:

"_Jack," she said. "Jack, I'm pregnant."_

"That's it. I'm putting a stop to this immediately." Tasmin jumped down the hole.

"But aren't we ..." Emma started. "Oh, bother." She climbed down the ladder and joined her partner who had her Colt M1911 trained on the couple on the sofa. She had already begun charging.

"Gwen!Sue and Jack!Stu, we are Protectors of the Plot Continuum. We are here to charge you with taking over the bodies of canon characters Gwen and Jack and replacing them with your Sue selves. We charge you with making Gwen and Jack a couple without explaining how they overcome the obvious obstacles to such a relationship, including but not limited to: Jack's immortality and the fact that he will outlive everyone he loves; Gwen already being involved in some kind of love-triangle. We charge you with complete lack of plot. We charge you with breaking up with Rhys in a six word sentence. We charge you with bashing Owen. We charge you with fitting the biggest sofa you could find down a manhole. We charge you with not dying of exhaustion, and we charge you with getting pregnant. You have been found guilty. The punishment for your crimes is death." Not waiting for a reply Tasmin shot the Sue and the Stu through the head.

"And this is why we have to make sure that they are Sues," Emma said. "So we don't accidentally kill the canons."

"They were Sues. I'm sure of that."

Jack!Stu blinked his eyes. He groaned and sat up. He looked at the agents. The agents looked at him. The agents looked at each other.

"That was to be expected," Emma said.

Tasmin emptied the magazine of her Colt on him. He slumped back over the sofa. "That's just great. We can't leave a Jack!Stu in a fic. The consequences will be catastrophic."

"I have an idea." Emma took the remote activator from her shoulder bag.

-oOo-

"Where are we?" Tasmin asked. The agents dragged the still dead Jack through the portal. "This place looks like hell."

"Good guess. It's Hades, from Greek mythology."

"And what are we doing here? We also can't just leave this Stu alive in any other fic."

"We're not. Well, not on the loose anyway." Emma pointed to a man chained to a rock standing waist high in a pool of water. "Remember Tantalos?"

"You want to free Tantalos?"

"No! Put Jack up next to him. See, the Gods already put up the spare chains in case anyone would need them."

"Women," Tantalos voice rasped. "Could you give me a drink of water?"

"Sorry, we're kinda busy here."

The agents wadded into the pool. They propped up Jack and put him in the chains. Then they went back to the Hub to get Gwen!Sue's body and threw her in the Phlegethon.

"We must gather everyone in the boardroom," Tasmin said. "We have some things to discuss with them. You'll find Jack; I'll look for Gwen. They're probably just cowering in a plot hole somewhere."

"Probably the one where she broke up with Rhys," Emma replied as she opened another portal to the Hub. "That one's big enough to hide a whole civilization."

-oOo-

Emma looked in all the plot holes she could find, but there was no trace of Jack. Then she had a brain wave and went up to the roof. There Jack was standing, hands in his pockets, overlooking the city and the night sky.

"I've been waiting for you," he said without turning around.

"I thought you were waiting for the Doctor."

"Aren't you him?" Jack turned around and threw Emma a cheeky grin.

"No, but I'm gonna suggest it to Tasmin next time we need disguises." She gave a head jerk towards the door. "You're needed downstairs."

"Good. It's getting chilly up here." Jack started for the door.

"How did you know I was here? I was under the impression you weren't supposed to be able to see us."

Jack shrugged. "If you work around perception filters long enough they kind of lose significance."

"That's good to know." Emma passed the door Jack held open for her. "In other words: we're screwed."

Jack chuckled. "For the moment I think I'm the only one that can see through yours."

-oOo-

Jack and Emma entered the boardroom where Tasmin had ushered the other Torchwood Three employees to go to. Jack sat down at the table between Owen and Gwen. Gwen was still shivering from her experience in the plot hole. Jack gave her an encouraging squeeze in the shoulder. Emma joined Tasmin at the opposite end of the table overlooking the assembly.

"Good, now we're all gathered here, we can start this instruction on birth-control," Tasmin started.

"Birth-control?" Owen asked in a mocking tone. "I'm already excellently versed on the subject matter. Can I be excused to put theory into practice?"

"Show me." Tasmin threw him a condom across the table.

"What? Now?" Owen held the condom up between thumb and forefinger and cocked his head a little.

"Unless you're not up to it," Emma replied with a smirk.

"This might be helpful." Tasmin also tossed him a banana.

Owen rolled his eyes and sighed. He gave the banana to Tosh who sat to the right of him. "Hold this, will you." Tosh nodded with a serious look and held the banana out for Owen. He tore open the condom's packet. He took the top of the condom between thumb and forefinger and rolled it down the banana with ease. "Satisfied?" he asked the two agents.

"As much as we can be from this distance," Emma replied.

Tasmin distributed condoms among the others. Gwen giggled this reminded her of Sex Ed lessons in school. Each of the members of Torchwood rolled in turn a condom over the banana.

When they were convinced each of them knew how to use a condom the agents started to gather up the empty packages and used condoms.

"Right," Tasmin said. "Condoms can be bought at any pharmacy. The nearest one is just down the road. From now on, I don't want to hear about any of you getting pregnant. Any of you." She glared at each of the people gathered around the table. "Got that?" They all quickly nodded in compliance. "Good. Then we can go." Tasmin picked up her duffel bag and nodded to Emma to open up a portal.

-oOo-

"How come you knew to bring condoms? You barely glanced over the fic before we went in." Emma flopped down on the sofa and folded her hands behind her head, leaving the typing up of the mission report to her partner.

"I've always got a few condoms packed into the duffel bag."

"Why? Scoring with the canons is out of the question. So what would you need them for?"

"Lots of things. To carry water in, as evidence bags, in case I feel a sudden need for making balloon animals."

"Condoms: never leave home without them."

"Right."

Emma chuckled and closed her eyes.

-oOo-

_A/N: _oh god_ was just a badly written story about two people having sex because they happened to be in the same room at the same time. If you are going to write smut the least you should do is also put in a plot. If you are just going to write smut for the sake of writing porn post it over on adultfanfiction.  
_Strawberry Lovin'_ also lacked a proper plot. A plot is where characters deal with aversion. Here, all aversion was ironed out, and not even in a nice way. Gwen loves Rhys. She opened the Rift to try to save his life. The least you should do is pay some attention to what their break up would be like. How characters try to overcome obstacles is what makes stories interesting. Everything else is candy floss._


	3. Baby Moon's Gift

_A/N: Protectors of the Plot Continuum were founded by Jay and Acacia. Excerpts in italics from_Baby Moon's Gift_ by Bry-Jack._

-oOo-

Tasmin eyed the basket that had just arrived suspiciously. In it sat a page-a-day calender that occasionally waved a thick orange tail.

"What is it?" she finally asked her partner who sat by the basket petting the calender.

"It's a mini-Monday. His name is Garfeild."

Tasmin nodded her head knowingly. A mini came into being whenever a character's name was misspelled. Minis often shared character trades with the canon they were named after. In this case Garfield. "At least he will sleep a lot." She shrugged her shoulders.

**BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP**

Tasmin turned around and walked over to the console. "A new mission in Torchwood. Do you have time for it?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Not really. Suggestions for a disguise?"

Emma got up and grinned. "Let's go in as the Face of Boe."

Tasmin looked at her partner. "The Face of Boe is a big head in a fish tank. How's that even practical?"

"Probably not," Emma said after a moment's ponder. "Just don't make us pizza delivery people again. They're boring."

"Fair enough." Tasmin tapped the keys on the console and a portal opened. The two agents grabbed their bags and stepped into the story.

-oOo-

"You're that Japanese fellow. What's his name?" Emma clicked her fingers to think of the name.

"Doctor Tanizaki," Tasmin offered.

"Tanizaki. That's the one." Emma looked herself over. "I also seem to be a man in a suit. Who am I?"

"Bilis Manger."

"Oh, great." Emma did not sound too pleased. "Nothing that can be done about that now. Let's just get on with this fic." She looked round the room noting the table, some assorted gadgets and Ianto and Owen. "Charge one, not a clue as to where we are." She dug through her shoulder bag to retrieve a pen and pad and made a note of the charge.

Owen was playing with a small sphere-shaped object. Ianto told him to put it down.

_Nothing was written about it, just it's name and that no one was to play with it as it would change lives forever._

"Well, that's ominous, isn't it?" Emma said. "Owen's playing with an object he shouldn't be playing with. Do I feel the plot nudging there?"

"Oh, it gets even more ominous." Tasmin pointed at the Words a sentence below.

"_What do you think it does?"_

"_I don't know, but what I do know is that whatever it does is irreversible."_

"How does he know that? Nothing was written about the thing just that it would change lives. It didn't even say irreversibly change lives." Emma scribbled some more on her pad.

"Welcome to the wonderful world of contrived plot device. Today's episode will feature the Baby Moon."

Owen put the object on the table and left. Moments later the sphere started shining brighter and the temperature in the room rose. Ianto tried to shield his eyes, and passed out.

Suddenly a breeze picked up in doors.

"Time rift!" Tasmin said. "I can't tell how long it will be so just grab something with a firm foundation, and hold on."

But there was nothing to hold on to and both agents were flung across the room by the strong time rift winds. Groggily they got up when the winds had died down.

"_What happened down there?"_

Emma held her head and moan. "I can't even tell who's doing the talking at the moment."

Tasmin squinted her eyes and looked at the Words. "That's because there aren't any speech tags. I think it's Jack, Owen and Tosh talking. Ianto's probably still passed out."

"No, I think he is just about to wake up." Emma pointed in the direction of Ianto.

_Sitting up sharply he also noted that his body not only hurt, but felt different. Putting his hands on his head he felt long hair that by the looks of it fell to his waist. From his hair to his face he felt sharper check bones, fuller lips and long eye lashes. Moving down not only did he notice that his Adam's apple and penis was gone, but in place was two breast,_

The two agents burst out laughing. The fic had followed the directions of the Words to the letter. And seeing Ianto with two breast, one dangling from his neck, the other in place of his penis, was even too much for Tasmin to keep her composure. Emma held on to her partner to keep herself from doubling over and falling back to the ground.

"_WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?!" Ianto screamed as she swung her legs off the table, turning to look at all three face on._

The breast on Ianto's neck bounced around as he spoke. Emma took in hiccuping breaths. She pushed her notepad at Tasmin.

Tasmin took it with a grunt. To her the joke had already warn off. She made a note of the botched up sex-change, the punctuation, and of the pronoun used. "Ianto's a he," she said through gritted teeth. "Even if he's trapped in a female body; he's a he. Crossdressers are referred to as she when they're in drag because they want to be called 'she'. Ianto doesn't want to be called she, so he should be referred to as he."

Emma wiped a tear from her cheek. "I think you should also make a note of the fact he's got long hair now, because of course long hair is só feminine."

"I think the long hair goes with the plot of the Baby Moon changed things. It's allowable, even if somewhat sexist."

Ianto freaked out about being turned into a woman. He worried about how to tell his parents, which the agents thought understandable. He also worried about his flat and his credit cards. A trail of thought the agents did not follow.

"In the film _Switch_, where a man is turned into a woman," Emma said. "The guy just stayed in his own apartment. And I don't know about British credit cards, but my dad's doesn't have his gender on it. Even if it did, no one's going to know if you do your shopping over the Internet."

"Here." Tasmin pushed the notepad back to Emma. "Write those charges down."

While Emma scribbled the charges down Jack picked Ianto up and carried him off to his office in his arms. There Ianto cried and Jack consoled. He promised Ianto they would sort things out. Then he told Ianto to sleep on the sofa.

Jack went back to the others who were still hanging around in the autopsy pit. The two agents were also still there. Jack told what he thought the object was.

"_I think it's a 'Little Moon'. Sort of like a sex change but without the hospital and all the mess. But that means Ianto is right and he is stuck a woman. FOREVER! So let's pray I'm wrong."_

"Obviously, he's never heard of cosmetic surgery," Emma said. "Though, for some reason men who want to become women are more common, they also perform sex change operations on women who want to be men. I once saw a documentary where they had made the penis from the skin grafted from this person's forearm."

"Please stop talking. You have made your point."

The transition to the next day went easier than the previous transition, as this time a divider, of sorts, had been used. The agents followed Jack, Tosh and Owen to the conference room. A moment later Gwen arrived. Because they all looked tired she asked them if something had happened.

"_Well…you_could_ say something happened?"_

_Gwen turned to look at the door way only to see a young woman._

"Even Ianto's curious whether something has happened." Emma chuckled.

Owen called the woman Ianto and again apologized for turning him into a woman.

"_OWEN, have you been drinking?! That's not Ianto. Ianto's a man, that's a woman."_

"She's not very quick on the pick up, is she?"

"No," Tasmin replied. "But Gwen has been at Torchwood long enough to realize that strange things happen. She would not question what Owen had said; she would ask again what had happened."

Jack explained that Ianto had been changed by an object that had fallen through the Rift fifty years earlier. Then he started delegating: Owen would give Ianto a medical check up; Tosh make him new identification papers; and Ianto would think about whether or not to change his name.

Emma and Tasmin looked on in surprise.

"Uh, why is no one, and by that I mean Gwen, saying: 'but isn't there anything we can do'?"

"Or Ianto for that matter," Tasmin added. "It seems they all have already accepted that there is nothing that can be done. I would have thought it would take Ianto longer than this to accept the inevitable. He kept a Cyberwoman on life support because he believed she could be reconverted. Surely, it's going to take longer than a couple of hours of sleep to accept his own conversion."

"I'm guessing Ianto is the Sue of this story." Emma leant a little closer to her partner. She continued in a whisper: "But wouldn't that mean he could see us now?"

Both agents cautiously looked over at Ianto, who was looking at his hand as Jack held it.

"He doesn't seem to be bothered by us. I guess we're safe as long as canon is hanging on by a thread, but if he ever does decided he no longer can be called Ianto ... You get my point."

Emma nodded.

The agents turned their attention back to the conversation at the conference table. Jack had two options for Ianto concerning his parents.

_"One -I go visit them and tell them that you died, or two -we retcon them."_

"What good is retcon going to do?" Emma asked. "Is he going to wipe Ianto's entire existence from his parents' minds?"

"Don't ask me. I didn't write this fic. But it seems like it. Jack continues by saying that he favors retcon, 'cause that way Ianto will have someone normal to talk to outside Torchwood."

Emma gave her a puzzled look. "What? You can't find normal people in the pubs in Cardiff?"

"Again, I didn't write this fic."

Emma scribbled 'retconning family for contrived reason' on her pad. "Wouldn't it make more sense," she looked up, "to tell his family there was an accident at work, and then give them retcon if they respond poorly?"

Tasmin scratched her eyebrow. "Perhaps that was Jack's intention here."

"He didn't say it, so it doesn't count." Emma stuck her pen behind her ear.

The Torchwood crew set to work on the tasks Jack had assigned them. The scene went dark for a moment and when light returned two hours had passed. Ianto walked into Jack's office. The two agents walked into the office after him and Emma closed the door behind them.

Ianto stood by the window overlooking the Hub.

"_I don't think I can live like this…and I don't think I'll ever be really happy like this." She whispered softly._

"Sex change, sex change, sex change," Emma sang. "Seriously, why has no one entertained this option yet? Do they all just assume that what alien magic brought about no human doctor's scalpel can undo?"

"I think we already covered the why-are-they-accepting-this-so-quickly point."

"Still, I'm going to bring it up every time I'm wondering just that."

Ianto cried into Jack's shoulder for ten minutes, while Jack tried to console him. Then Jack gave him some money so Ianto could buy new outfits and Ianto started on the list of everyone he needed retconned.

"Let's skip ahead a bit." Tasmin pulled the remote activator from one of her jacket pockets and opened a portal.

-oOo-

The portal brought the two agents to Ianto's apartment building. Ianto walked past them and started to climb the stairs to the top floor. Emma pointed to the elevator, but Tasmin shook her head. She pointed to Ianto and indicated that they should follow him. Emma sighed. The two agents started their ascent. They stopped short of the top floor as Ianto ran into a neighbor, and the agents would rather stay out of the visual range of any non-canon characters.

Ianto hadn't met this neighbor yet.

_Turning to look at him she noticed that he was good looking -tall, skinny and looking at her with big brown eyes. He flashed her a cute smile, showing off his teeth. His hair was all over the place, but he sill look cool in his suit._

"The phrase 'his hair was all over the place' makes me picture him as King Kong's nephew," Tasmin commented.

"Well, women like apes," Emma replied and chuckled.

The ape introduced himself as James Brown. Which got him an eye rolling from both agents. Then they quickly rushed down the stairs and ran into the corridor of the floor below Ianto's as the ape was coming down the stairs. When they were certain he had passed they climbed up the stairs again. Tasmin picked the lock to Ianto's flat and the two agents let themselves in.

_The flat had a big sitting area with six doors leading off to the kitchen, three spare bedrooms, a bathroom and the master bedroom which had an en-suite bathroom._

"Nice place." Emma let out a whistle of appreciation.

"Come, Ianto must be in his bedroom." Tasmin pulled Emma on her elbow.

The door to the bedroom stood ajar. The agents poked their heads around the door and saw Ianto standing before the big mirror.

_She looked at her reflection as she started to pull of her clothes, well, not hers, they had belonged to someone who had worked at Torchwood Three, but no longer needed them for what ever reason…_

"Ianto is accepting this all too quickly. He doesn't even think of his clothes anymore as his clothes," Emma said. "The least he could do is be upset he doesn't look so good in his suits anymore."

"That be more something for Jack to be upset about." Tasmin chuckled.

"Jack will screw anything as long as they're gorgeous; he doesn't care much about the packaging material."

Ianto studied his naked body.

_Her skin was a milky white all over her body and dark hair between her legs and under her arms._

"Yes, because he didn't have the latter as a man. Shees." Emma pulled her head away from the door. She walked over to the TV, turned it on and started flipping through the channels. "Ooh,_Working Lunch_. I love that fish."

"Ianto just went to bed." Tasmin joined Emma in the sitting area. She checked her watch. "According to my calculations it's only three, maybe four hours since Gwen came to work this morning."

"I guess having your gender changed is exhausting."

"I guess not keeping a time line next to your story when you're writing causes little mishaps as sending someone to bed around lunchtime." Tasmin let herself fall onto the sofa. "Write that down as a charge."

The scene faded to black once more, and when it unfaded to colour the TV was showing a children's program. Emma turned off the TV.

"Good morning, good morning," she sang. "We talked the whole night through. Good mor-"

"Shut up." Tasmin got up and walked over to the bedroom. She poked her head around the door again.

Ianto was just getting ready to take a shower.

_She picked out two towels and walked into her bathroom, putting her stuff down on the chair near the door she started the shower before walking over to the sink where she picked up her razor and shaving cream. Going back to the shower she stepped in, carrying the razor and cream carefully. After being in the shower for half an hour she stepped out again._

"Uh, what did he do with the razor in the shower?" Emma asked. She had stuck her head around the door as well.

"Ianto must have accepted fully that he is a woman now." Tasmin grinned. "I think he shaved his legs."

"What has that got to do with anything? Male," Emma emphasized the word, "professional swimmers, cyclist and, I bet, runners of any distance too, also shave their legs. Something about less air resistance."

"They shave their legs because their legs are massaged every day. And all that rubbing makes the skin irritate around the hairs," Tasmin rebutted. "Swimmers think it gives them an advantage in the water, though."

Ianto pulled on an old pair of jeans that he had kept despite being too small, but fitted him perfectly, except for the legs being a bit long, now.

"And make a note of Ianto the woman having slimmer hips than Ianto the man," Tasmin said.

When he had finished dressing Ianto went to sit on the sofa. The agents quickly went into one of the spare bedrooms. With Ianto's metamorphosis taking the course it was they weren't sure anymore he could not see them. They left the door slightly ajar so they could still look into the sitting area. Ianto started making a list of all the new things he needed. He buzzed Tosh in when she arrived.

_Looking at each other they burst out giggling._

"Tosh giggling. I didn't even know she could," Tasmin said a note of surprise in her voice.

"I imagine she'll giggle if you lick her just the right way."

Tasmin shook her head quickly so those words would not stick. "Anyway, it seems like Ianto and Tosh are becoming girl-friends."

"Seems that way." Emma fumbled for her note pad without taking her eyes of what was happening in the sitting room.

Tasmin looked around and read the Words. She tapped her partner on the shoulder. "Not much interesting happening here anymore. Not much interesting happening during shopping. Tosh makes a comment that gay men make better women."

"A. Tosh would never make such an in touch with the modern world kind of joke. B. Ianto is not gay. He had a female lover." Emma turned to look at her partner. "Or actually, I should label these charges M and N."

Tasmin smirked. She opened up a portal and invited her partner to go through first.

-oOo-

The agents stepped through the portal into a street.

"The house of Ianto's parents." Tasmin pointed. "I thought it better not to go inside."

"Sound plan."

A car pulled up and Ianto got out. He was wearing a black pencil skirt with blue pin stripe and a white button up shirt. He went into the house.

_Walking down the corridor to the first door on the left, she saw that all the photos that had her in them as a man now had her in them as a woman, even the baby picture's had gone from a boyish blue to a decidedly girly pink._

The agents looked at each other.

"Did Jack do that?" Emma asked. "He completely obliterated the male Ianto from all his family's mind and replaced it with a female version?"

"Could be him; could be the Baby Moon."

"If it was the Baby Moon then why do he and his colleagues still remember he was a man once? Come to think of it. Did Ianto include any school friends or other acquaintances of his on that list for Jack?"

"Not that I recall."

"He'd gone through all this work, and he missed a spot." Emma shook her head. "Still think they should have told them Ianto had changed due to an accident and then retconned they if they freaked out. Kinda what Gwen did to Rhys."

Ianto went into the sitting room where his mum, an aunt and both his sisters were.

"_Well now that you're here we can talk about your wedding to Wynn."_

"What?" Emma exclaimed.

Ianto shared her feelings. Thoughts that this was wrong ran through his mind.

'_WHAT No that's not right, Lowri's the one getting married not me. Lowir's the oldest girl……..oh no……Dewydd is the oldest boy and is married to Liz. And Lowri was the oldest girl, so she should be getting married, but now I'm the oldest girl…….OH GOD……OH GOD…….I'M GOING TO KILL OWEN!!!'_

"First of, if everyone is thinking Ianto is getting married to his sister's fiancé then Jack has screwed up with the retcon. Second, if this Wynn is only marrying Lowri because she is the eldest daughter he has screwed up reasons for getting married."

"Third," Tasmin added. "Abuse of punctuation."

Emma looked over her charge list. "I've already got punctuation here. Don't have marriage moral that stems from biblical times yet. The eldest daughter has to get married first," she mumbled the last sentence as she wrote it down. She looked up. "Can I charge them for not having the dress yet for the third bridesmaid two days before the wedding?"

"No. That Ianto's very organised doesn't mean the rest of his family is."

"_Now dear, let's get you in your dress." Ianto's aunt said, pulling her behind a screen so she could change. Taking off her new clothes, she looked at the dress, hoping that it was fit as it was meant to be for Lowri._

"What?" Emma said. "Does this author even know Ianto? Five minutes ago he hears he's getting married, to his sister's fiancé. And now he's already hoping her dress will fit? Ianto doesn't adapt to change this easily."

"Perhaps the Baby Moon has changed that too for him."

Emma frowned at her partner. "Yes, let's ascribe all errors in this fic to Baby Moon. I can close my notepad now and we can go back to the office." Emma closed her notepad, smirked and stuffed the notepad in her bag.

Tasmin smirked. "I love it when you use irony."

"I hate it when you seem to have been drinking."

Tasmin frowned. "I haven't been drinking."

Emma chuckled.

"I never drink."

Ianto's aunt finished the dress and Ianto said Tosh would be his third bridesmaid. Then he packed up the wedding books and the dress in his car's boot and drove back to the Hub.

Tasmin noted that it took him twenty minutes longer to drive back then it had taken him to get there.

"Perhaps he had to stop for gas."

Tasmin glared at Emma.

Emma stuck her hands in her trouser pockets and shrugged lightly. "Two can play this game."

Tasmin sighed. "Let's go to the Hub." She opened a portal and stepped through.

Emma strolled after her partner singing: "Let's go to the Hub, oh baby. Let's go to the Hub. You can rock it; you can roll it; you can strop it; you can stroll it at the Hub, Hub, Hub, Hub, Hub, Hub, Hub."

-oOo-

At the Hub Tasmin and Emma sat down on the old sofa in the coffee corner and waited for the rest of the team to arrive back at the Hub. When they returned Ianto ran straight out of the conference room and told them, coldly, he was getting married on Friday.

"_Because now I'm the oldest girl. And the oldest girl gets an arranged marriage. So thanks Owen."_

"Oh, it's an arranged marriage," Tasmin said. "Well, that explains part of it. Though, usually groups that are in the habit of arranging marriages arrange them for all their children."

"Still doesn't explain why Ianto was quickly accepting being a woman, being a woman in an arranged marriage. That should have sent him screaming out the door."

Jack told everyone to go to work and that Ianto should come and see him in his office.

_Seeing Jack was sitting in his chair, staring coldly at his desk, the books weighing heavily in her arms. She knew not to say anything, Jack was too angry to listen to anything she would have to say._

"Confusing use of passive voice," Tasmin said. "And if anything, Ianto should be the angry one."

Ianto explained that in his family the oldest son and daughter always had an arranged marriage. Why that was a custom in his family he didn't explain.

"So Ianto is from a cultural group that still practices arranged marriages." Emma rolled her eyes. "That would have to be a pretty big group too, if they want to avoid inbreeding."

"Often, inbreeding is of less concern than marrying the children off into a good family."

Ianto said he didn't want to get married to his sister's beau, but that he couldn't tell his parents because that would kill them. Jack tried to reassure Ianto that they would think of something. Ianto fell as sleep and Jack started ordering everyone around again: Owen to look over everything; Tosh to get ready to be a bridesmaid; and Gwen to look into the background of the groom. After a few hours of sleep Ianto woke up and decided to go home.

The agents decided not to follow, but sit the fic out for a while. Emma made them both a cup of coffee. The fic would still take some time.

-oOo-

On Thursday Ianto got a visit from his neighbour, James Brown, in the afternoon. He made some tea for the both of them.

_As she watched him make the tea, she noted that he hadn't asked her how she liked her tea, but strangely enough; he seemed to know exactly, lots of milk and two sugars._

"_How do you know that I like my tea this way?" She asked curiously, taking the cup and saucer that he offered her._

"Ugh, nonsense," grunted Emma into her coffee mug. "Every time someone makes tea for me and doesn't ask me how I like it they put in milk and lots of sugar. It's like: if you don't feel like asking, just ruin the tea completely."

"Most Brits take their tea with milk and sugar; that could be a reason this Brown isn't asking."

"He's also not asking: why are you getting married to someone you've only met twice. Why is she even telling him this?"

"Did you just say 'she'?"

Emma thought about what she had said. "Yeah, I said she. I've stopped thinking of Ianto as Ianto. She's now a proper Sue to me." She gulped down her coffee and got up. "I need another mug of this."

Brown left after telling Ianto he hoped Ianto had made the right decision. Then Jack rang and Ianto tried to distract him with some flirting. Jack was slightly distracted and asked if he could come over later that day.

When Jack arrived Ianto invited him into the bedroom, as that was a warmer room than the sitting area. Jack asked Ianto whether he had decided yet whether he was getting married or not.

"_I don't know what to do… Do I get married to this guy that I've only meet two times and make everyone happy, but make myself unhappy for the rest of my life… or do I not get married and make everyone unhappy but me so I can be happy with you?"_

"Sounds like a good enough reason to me," Emma said. She sat back down next to Tasmin. "Besides, if Wynn and Lowri really love each other, they're probably also going to be happier if the marriage doesn't go through. So that's at least three people happier."

Jack then asked if he could be Ianto's first. Ianto was as aghast as the two agents. Jack explained.

"_NO! That didn't come out right… You know how girls go on and on and on about how the first time should be something special with someone you love and who loves you back. Well… I don't want you to maybe get married and be with someone you don't love, who really doesn't love you. I want you to have something to remember whether you stay with me or be with someone else….."_

"What the fuck is he talking about?" Emma exclaimed. "Doesn't he realize that people who do arranged marriages also feel strongly about no premarital sex?"

"Apparently he didn't and neither did Ianto. He just said yes."

"Aargh. We're not going to sit through this sex scene are we?"

"Uh." Tasmin checked the Words. "Well, the Words to that scene are missing here."

"Too hot for FFnet." Emma chuckled. "I'm curious though. First times are usually awkward, and this would be Ianto's first time as a woman. That adds to the awkwardness. Most first timers at least know their own bodies. So, what's your estimate: will this be an awkward sex scene?"

"Based on how quickly Ianto said yes, I would have to say it is just going to be smut, not angsty smut."

"I've got the creeping suspicion that Ianto got his sex change because the author wanted to put Jack and Ianto together but did not want to write slash."

"Kinda looks that way, doesn't it?"

"I've got a nice list of charges. Let's go to that wedding and see who else we need to deal with."

"Sounds good." Tasmin got up and fetched the remote activator.

-oOo-

At the church the two agents slipped into one of the back pews.

"You know, this is interesting," Emma said. "None of the churches I've ever been to had pews. They all had chairs, well, at least for the church goers. This fic is a little low on description, yet I'm imagining sitting down in a pew although I've never actually sat down in a pew."

"Churches in TV shows and movies always have pews. I think that's why you're thinking of them now."

Ianto and his dad passed them walking up the isle.

"Start writing: Mum, Dad, two sisters, groom, auntie, that James Brown fellow."

Emma tried to keep up with her partner. "The priest," she added.

_The minister scanned over the congregation,_

"_First, I am required to ask anyone present who knows a_

_reason why these persons may not lawfully marry, to declare_

_it now."_

"Cue dramatic rescue by Jack."

Both agents turned their head to the church doors, but they remained closed. The agents sat back facing forward.

"And now Ianto is going to marry a man," Emma said. "The first same-sex marriage in Britain. I've just thought of something." Her excitement nearly made her partner jump. "If Tosh hadn't worked so hastily at making Ianto legally a woman, he could have gotten out of this marriage by saying that on his birth certificate it says he's a man. Surely, having your gender changed legally takes a bit of time and effort."

"Usually it does, at least for transsexuals. I don't know how it works if you go there claiming it was an error made by the civil servant."

"That probably takes even longer; the court would have to make a thorough investigation that there was indeed an error made by a civil servant. And then that ruling had to be processed by the bureaucratic mill. And those mills run slowly."

"Too bad Ianto hadn't realized that."

The minister continued talking and Ianto, though wondering several times what he was doing and thinking that it was wrong, and Wynn exchanged vows.

_Ianto looked at the ring on her finger and then at the man, who put it there. Looking at his smiling face before looking at Lowri, Ianto took a deep breath before ripping the ring off and dropping it to the floor. With the room in shock Ianto pick up the hem of her dress before running down the aisle._

"Follow him!" Tasmin jumped up and started running.

She wasn't the only one. She had to watch out not to bump into Wynn. Tosh and Owen were close behind him. Followed by an assortment of Ianto's and Wynn's family members. Emma closed the ranks.

Ianto ran out of the church and down the steps. He headed for the road.

_Just as she got to the road the lights went red, letting people cross the road. As she run across the road -being followed by at least ten people calling out to her- she got funny looks from various drivers and their passengers. Weaving though the mass of people, she realized that she didn't have any real place to go or any time for a plan._

Then she ran into Jack. Who greeted her with a passionate kiss.

Tasmin was the first to reach the duo. She pulled her Beretta from her duffel bag and trained it on Ianto.

"Ianto Jones, we're Protectors of the Plot Continuum and we're here to charge you for crimes against fanfiction in general and Torchwood in particular."

"What?" Ianto looked up at Jack and tried to find shielding in his arms.

Jack slowly caressed her arms from the shoulder to the wrist. Then grabbed her by the wrists and turned her around facing the PPC agent, her arms twisted behind her back.

"Emma, the charges," Tasmin said to her partner that had just caught up.

"Pant," Emma said and pulled the notepad from her shoulder bag. "Hi, Jack, have you found the real Ianto for us?"

"Sure, he's right over there with Gwen." Jack nodded to his right. From a nearby shop Gwen and Ianto emerged. Ianto was looking decidedly poorly.

"Good. Then we can commence with the charging."

"What, what is going on?" Sue!Ianto asked.

"Shush, now. Listen to these nice young ladies, disguised as funny old men."

"If I had the time I would take offense," Emma replied. She opened her notepad. "Ianto Jones-Sue, we hereby charge you for turning Ianto into a woman, but barely letting him angst about that, rather he accepts womanhood rather quickly. This is a man." Emma pointed to the Ianto standing beside Gwen. "Who kept a Cyberwoman on life support in order to find a cure for her condition. He would not accept being a woman in a few hours time; he would look for ways to be turned back to a man. Which, by the way, are available both privately and through the NHS. We charge you with starting to use female pronouns when referring to Ianto from the moment he changed. This probably accelerated Ianto's unlikely quick acceptance of being a woman.

"We charge you with retconning the entire family and changing all their memories of Ianto. That even would be too much work for Torchwood One, and Jack did it supposedly in one night. We charge you with using a contrived plot device -- to wit an arranged marriage -- to add drama to the story. There already was enough drama potential in Ianto being turned into a woman and having to learn to accept that, or not, which you chose to just ignore."

"Iant- I angsted about being turned into a woman."

"Yes, for a couple of minutes; then you went to bed, slept for sixteen hours and decided to buy sexy lingerie. That's not angsting; that's accepting." Emma smirked at Sue!Ianto. "That was by the way a charge for bad time keeping."

"Time what?"

"Don't interrupt me. I'm on a roll. We charge you with using very little description, except when describing your clothes. We just had to make up the interior of that church ourselves. We also charge you with bad grammar which resulted in having a breast on your neck and one on your groin. Let's see." Emma flicked through the pages. "What else is interesting to mention? Ah yes, everybody was out of character. Tosh does not giggle like a schoolgirl, and when Gwen asks stupid questions they are still to the point."

Emma smirked again. "You have been charged. Tasmin will shoot you now."

"You can't-" Sue!Ianto's last words were caught short by the bullet that entered her forehead.

The bullet proceeded through Sue!Ianto's head and exited at the back, where it then pierced Jack's chest. Both Jack and Sue!Ianto fell to the ground.

"I think you just killed Jack too."

"Oops."

"Shall I gave mouth to mouth to him?" Emma asked with a smirk.

"Shall I make an appointment with anti-lustin' for you?"

With a big gasp of breath Jack came back to live. He sat up. "Young lady, that wasn't nice." He gave Tasmin a reproachful look.

"Sorry," she said. She unscrewed the silencer form her gun and returned both items to her duffelbag. "How did you know this wasn't the real Ianto?"

"I saw the two of you hanging around the Hub, so I knew something was wrong. I went looking around and found him hiding in a filing cabinet in the archives." Jack extended an arm to Ianto who came closer.

"And then you made him come out of the closet, again," Emma said. Her partner glared at her. "What? This was asking to be said."

Tasmin rolled her eyes. She turned around. Wynn and Lowri were holding hands and chatting amicably. "Why are you people all still here? Don't you have a wedding to go to?"

"We, er, we were waiting for Ianto to come along," Ianto's father replied after a moments hesitation. It seemed the family members were also all a bit puzzled as to what they were doing in the middle of the street.

"Well, here he is and off you go."

The Joneses and Archers turned around and with Wynn and Lowri leading the way went back to the church. Ianto followed Jack's arm draped around his shoulder. The rest of the Torchwood team made up the rear. Only the two PPC agents stayed behind.

"Time to go home," Tasmin said and opened a portal.

"Don't we still have to take care of James Brown?"

"I've a feeling he has sorted himself out already," Tasmin replied. She stepped through the portal.

Emma frowned and then shrugged the thought off. She followed her partner back to the response centre, back to her pet.

-oOo-

_A/N: There are few characters that would accept in a few hours time that they have irreversibly changed gender. Ianto is not likely one of those people. The drama in a gender switch fic featuring Ianto can thus come entirely from him finding ways to cope, but also trying to reverse. Added drama can come from his relationship with Jack that suddenly has got to feel like some sort of threesome. Such a story would not need a contrived plot device such as an arranged marriage, particularly if the reason for the arranged marriage is never properly explained.  
As to a comment made by PIStaker: the information I was able to obtain (the lemma on same-sex marriages in Wikipedia) did not list the UK as a country where same-sex marriage is legal. The UK does, however, recognize civil unions by same-sex couples. John Barrowman is in a civil union with his partner. Commonly this union is know as gay marriage, but it is not the same as a legal marriage. Although, civil union couples have much the same rights and duties as married couples.  
It is actually because of this common usage of 'gay marriage' for civil union that I've debated whether I should put the comment about same-sex marriage in the story. So, thank you, PIStaker, for pointing out to me that I should have clarified this matter in my author's notes earlier. _


	4. Another Time Lord

_A/N: Protectors of the Plot Continuum was founded by Jay and Acacia. Excerpts in italics taken from _Another Time Lord _by potterfreak1.618._

-oOo-

Because their first stop in the story would be Roald Dahl Plass Tasmin had chosen for them the disguise of normal people. Emma's argument that lots of aliens **look** like normal people got the reply: "Then what's the point of disguising ourselves as such an alien?" Emma had shaken her head in disbelief and followed her partner through the portal.

Emma turned to look at Jack, who was running across the Plass crouched over.

"What's he doing that for?" Tasmin wondered.

"Perhaps his trying to dodge the Sue."

"That didn't help much. He just ran into her head first."

_Jack apologized profusely to the girl and helped her to her feet. _

"I don't know what profusely means," Emma said, "but that looks like uncharacteristic grovelling. Jack just has to bat his eyelashes and all is forgiven."

"I'm sure there are moments when that doesn't work."

"C'mon. No one is immune to the charm of Captain Jack Harkness."

"She is." Tasmin gave a light nod in the direction of the Sue who walked away listening to the music on her MP3 player.

"That should be a charge in itself." Emma lifted the flap of her shoulderbag and got her notepad.

Jack followed the girl to ask her what music she was listening to.

_The girl had the oddest expression on her face. The look she gave Jack was one of superiority, mischief, confusion, and maybe a little pity. _

"Superiority is like so." Emma made a face. "Mischief would be like so." She tried on a smirk. "This would be confusion, and this is pity."

"That's actually contempt."

"And when you try that all at once you get ..." Emma screwed up her face. "A pain in your eyebrows. It's not possible to look mischievous and confused at the same time."

The Sue said the music she was listening to was Strontium Goat. Which was reason enough for Jack to knock her unconscious.

"That bad a band?" Emma asked.

"It's actually quite popular in the _Thursday Next Continuum_."

"What's it doing in this continuum then?"

"Let's find out."

"_Jack, what the hell was that for?" Gwen shouted at him, appalled._

_But Jack was worried. What the hell was this girl? She hadn't even looked scared when he had grabbed her arm. But what was even scarier; she had music from a band that didn't exist for another 29 centuries._

Tasmin huffed. "I wouldn't look scared either when a stranger grabbed my arm. I'd look annoyed and tell him to take his hand off me. Lest he never wanted to get it back at all."

Emma smirked. "And if it were Jack who'd lay a hand on you you'd swoon rather than look scared."

"Uh, yeah. In this case everything happened so swiftly. Jack grabbed her arm, turned her around and knocked her out. She didn't have time to get scared enough to wipe her look of surprise or annoyance of her face."

"Right. Let's see if we can travel down the invisible lift with Gwen and Jack." Emma started to run across the Plass to catch up with the two.

Tasmin quickly ran after her.

It was crowded on the stepping stone with the five of them. Jack carried the Sue over his shoulder, Gwen continued to shout at him for knocking down a girl oblivious that Jack was containing himself not to knock her out too, and Tasmin and Emma were trying not to get in the way.

"At least he didn't knock her up," Emma joked.

"The fic is still young," Tasmin replied. "Anything could happen."

"I'd like Gwen to stop shouting to happen." Emma stuck a finger in each ear to keep the noise level down.

Gwen continued shouting while she explained to Owen what she had seen happen. Jack took the Sue to the cells and locked her up.

_He found a chair and placed it in front of the window of the girl's cell and waited for her to wake up, deep in thought. _

"Now would have been a good time for us to disguise ourselves as Weevils," Emma said. "We could have waited in the cell next door."

The agents had climbed up the stairs to Tosh's workstation where they joined the rest of the Team in looking at the CCTV footage of the cell block.

Tasmin didn't take her eyes off the screen to reply: "Yeah, sure."

Emma turned around and sat on the desk. She watched Gwen tell the others what had happened. By this time Gwen had stopped shouting. When Gwen was done explaining, or rather had finished expressing she didn't have a clue, the Sue in the cell woke up and the verbal pingpong between her and Jack started.

"_What do you know about Strontium Goat?" she asked. "This is the 21st century, is it not?"_

"_Yes, it is. And I want to know how you got music from a band that doesn't even exist until the 50th century."_

"_First tell me how you know about the 50th century," countered the girl._

That comment rebuffed Jack completely. He felt forced to tell her he was from the fifty-first century.

Tasmin grabbed Emma's bag and pulled a notepad and pen from it. She scribbled down a charge.

The Sue then said she was in the twenty-first century because she needed the Rift.

"The Rift already existed in the nineteenth century. I'm sure it will exist still at a later time," Tasmin said.

"There's evidence in canon that the Rift existed long before that."

"Still, it explains why she is in Cardiff, not why she's in the twenty-first century."

"_Wait, you needed the rift? What would you need the rift for?" Jack's eyes widened. "Unless… are you a time lord?" _

"That explains it! Bilis Manger was a Time Lord not a minion of the Beast," Emma said.

"Technically, Manger needed the Rift to open."

"Can't need the Rift to open without needing the Rift. Besides, my point was there are plenty more undesirables that need the Rift than just Time Lords. Do I need to remind anyone of the Gelth? Or Margaret the Slitheen?"

"The Sue would need reminding."

The Sue got furious when Jack said he had travelled with the Doctor. She started meditating and a moment later the TARDIS appeared in the Hub near the water feature. Martha and the Doctor got out.

"Error the first," Tasmin said glaring down at the Doctor past the computer. "The Doctor always checks his monitors first. As soon as he'd see he was at Torchwood he'd try to get out again. He doesn't like Torchwood."

Jack walked up to the Doctor and gave him a hug.

"_Doctor! It is you, isn't it? I can see you've regenerated. Nice body."_

"_Jack, you're dead. Really. You were killed by the Daleks."_

"Error the second. The Doctor knows Jack has survived the Daleks."

"Many fans like to think that the Doctor didn't know because that would mean he had left Jack on purpose and that would make him a jerk."

"There's plenty of evidence during season two and three to back the suggestion that the Doctor is a jerk. Are fans denying that too?"

Emma shrugged. "You're the one who said that fans only remember the parts of canon that are convenient to them."

"_Where's Rose?"_

_The Doctor still didn't answer. Jack stared at him in disbelief, and then…_

Both agents quickly ducked down. Cautiously they peered around the equipment underneath Tosh's workstation to assess the state of canon after Jack had punched the Doctor. The Doctor was looking distinctly lopsided and Jack's hair had changed colour.

"When are these 'fans' going to learn that Jack does not hit the Doctor; he hits **on** the Doctor?" Emma yanked the notepad and pen from Tasmin's hands and started scribbling furiously.

"You should try to make the charges legible at least," Tasmin said looking over her partner's shoulder. "We don't want to charge the Sue with the wrong offences."

"Don't worry. I'm not forgetting what I wrote. Even if I can't read it." Emma put a few keywords in capitals behind each line. "Seriously, though," she said holding the pad to her chest. "All these stories where Jack punches the Doctor because Rose is dead make me wonder how many people actually watched _Parting of the Ways_. He, A, loves them both, and, B, knows that the Doctor sent away Rose so that she would be safe. If anything: Jack should have drawn the conclusion that the Doctor never went back to pick up Rose."

"Yes, but that would require these fans to actually put themselves in Jack's position. And you can see over there what a poor job they make of that." Tasmin nodded down towards the crowd gathered around the water feature.

The Doctor had scrambled up. He had come to Torchwood on a hunch that there was a Time Lord, but he shrugged it off on the grounds that that was impossible.

"So is Jack." Emma sniggered.

"_It's not impossible, Doctor. Why couldn't one survive? Why can't I be here?"_

"Time Lords that hide themselves from other Time Lords are acceptable." Tasmin cocked her head. "It's canon. Time Lords that just went undetected are not."

"And which is this?"

"I don't know yet. She didn't seem to be particularly hiding so far. You should write her up, though, for just walking out of her cell."

Emma nodded her approval and made the note.

The Doctor and the Sue stared at each other. The Doctor was nearly dumbfounded. Stuttering he asked for an explanation.

"_How? How'd you escape. I cut off the time vortex so no Daleks could escape." And no time lords, he thought to himself._

"_I told you, I always survive. I just destroyed one of the barriers that you placed on the vortex and escaped to this planet."_

"Bit of a selfish bitch," Emma said. "Why didn't she try to rescue anyone from her species?"

"Stupid bitch too. Daleks could have escaped through that hole in the perimeter too, and the Time War would have gone on."

"_They always said you were a genius. No wonder they were all jealous of you. You were the only one to survive out of all of the time lords…" he barely finished._

"Before all this stupidity made his brain implode." Tasmin glared down. "It was genius to come up with a plan that would end the Time War once and for all. It's not genius to disable that plan. At least not when you're fighting on the same side."

"But she's Mary Sue. She put the idiot in Idiot Savant."

Tasmin gave her partner a puzzled look then chuckled lightly. "I guess you are right about that."

The Sue said another Time Lord had escaped.

"She did rescue another one of them after all," Emma noted.

"That's two Time Lords that went undetected by the Doctor," Tasmin noted.

"_Who?" he croaked finally._

"_The Master," she said softly, watching his reaction intently._

"She does have poor choice in friends, however."

The party of eight started to ascend the stairs. Tasmin and Emma quickly hid in the kitchenette.

After the Doctor and the Sue entered Jack's office he sent his Team away. They went down the stairs and gathered around a coffee pot to eavesdrop on the conversation in Jack's office. Tasmin and Emma snuck closer to the office to listen in. Jack had left the door open.

"_So, uh, who's the master? Is he like your long-lost cousin or something?" asked Jack._

"Is Jack like, you know, a Valley-girl?" Emma asked.

"No, and neither are you. Don't talk as one."

The Sue laughed hysterically. Both agents found her cackling grating, but understood it was necessary for the Sue to show she was evil.

"_The Master isn't his cousin, he's his brother," she answered their wordless question breathlessly._

Tasmin and Emma looked at each other. Emma raised her eyebrows.

Tasmin shrugged. "They knew each other as children, but I think it would have been played out in canon if they had been brothers."

"Twin brothers even."

The Sue and the Doctor went on to list the many of the Sue's accomplishments. Rolling her eyes Emma took notes of the fact she beat the Doctor and the Master at graduation, was a prodigy, and had found a way to slow down her ageing, which effectively made her look, and act, like a twelve-year-old.

_Wow, thought Jack, that girl is annoying._

"Is that a brief stint of personality trying to break through?" Emma asked cautiously.

"Shh, she's going to explain how she managed to fool the Doctor into thinking she was dead."

"That will probably have something to do with how brilliant she is."

"Probably, yeah."

"_I wasn't hiding Doctor. I didn't really think that there was any point."_

"That's just blatant denial of canon. And it doesn't explain one bit how the Doctor did not sense her."

"Shh."

_Then she added thoughtfully, "I don't even know if I care that you destroyed it. They all hated me. They were jealous. They couldn't stand me being perfect at everything. I think I'm glad they're gone…"_

"Oh, did the poor woobies hate you for being pwufect? That is so sad." Emma made a pouting face. "Let me give you a hug for comfort."

"I'd like to give her something else." Tasmin pulled both her guns from her duffelbag and entered Jack's office.

Emma quickly scrambled up and went after her.

"Eilonwy. We're Protectors of the Plot Continuum and we're here to charge you with crimes against fanfiction and against the continua of Doctor Who and Torchwood in particular."

The Sue cackled madly again. "You can't charge me. You have no power over me."

Tasmin shot the Sue between the eyes with her Beretta. The Sue fell down on the floor, narrowly missing Jack's desk.

"Tasmin!" Emma shouted out in horror.

"No!" the Doctor cried out. He dropped on his knees and gathered the Sue up in his arms.

"You should charge the Sue before you shoot her. Not the other way 'round."

"She'll regenerate."

"That's no excuse. Though an interesting topic for an ethical debate: can a person be held responsible for crimes committed in a previous incarnation?"

"I think you can find some arguments on that topic among Hindu philosophers. In any case: in PPC there is jurisprudence we can. In the form of killing all the incarnations of a Stu or Sue Time Lord."

"Yeah, but only after they have been charged."

Tasmin shrugged. The Sue regenerated, again into a twelve year old girl. Emma studied the charge sheet to determine in which order she wanted to charge the Sue.

"What did you do that for?" the Sue snapped at Tasmin.

"To show that I do have power over you. Emma has power over you too." Tasmin smiled measly at the Sue. "Emma?"

"Yeah, I have the power of Santa Claus. I've made a list; I've checked it twice. And you, dear Sue, haven't been nice," Emma sang to tune. "First of all, we charge you with being a Mary Sue: you are impervious to Jack's charm; you ask a question of the I-asked-you-first variety which Jack for some reason feels compelled to answer; you just walk out of one of Torchwood's holding cells; you are the smartest Time Lord ever and everyone hates you. And that was before you sabotaged the Doctor's war strategy.

"Second, we charge you with contrived plot devices. To use the Rift you need to be in Cardiff, not in the twenty-first century. Plus it's not just Time Lords that need the Rift for something or other. Even if this story were set just after _Day One_ Jack would still know that. He would not put two and two together and come up with eleven.

"Third, we charge you with a disregard for canon. Time Lords can sense each other unless they are in some sort of hiding. Yet, you can sense the Master, who is hiding, but can't sense the Doctor, who isn't hiding. Further, the Doctor knows Jack has survived the Game Station."

"Yeah, I did." The Doctor looked up at Jack. "I knew you had. You shouldn't have, but you did." He dropped the Sue. "It was Rose."

"Coming to Rose," Emma continues. "Jack knows the Doctor would do anything to take care of Rose. He would not demand an explanation from the Doctor about her whereabouts or well-being, and he most certainly would not hit the Doctor."

"I would hit on the Doctor," Jack added with a cheeky grin.

"That's what I said." Emma winked at him.

"Oh, c'mon. It's fanfiction. It's part of the point to rewrite the bits of canon you don't like."

"Yes, but could you at least show yourself to be a fan of the material? And not change the personalities of the canon characters. I've already mentioned a few points why Jack wasn't himself. I'd like to add that Jack also does not tell his prisoners that he is from the fifty-first century. Particularly not when that isn't relevant for the interrogation."

"It was relevant. It was to make me talk."

Tasmin huffed. "Jack knows torture techniques. He has ways of making you sign like a nightingale. He'd use them long before he'd tell you where he picked up the skills."

"Further, you show yourself not to be a fan of Gwen by having her shout a lot."

"Yeah, well, Gwen."

"Yeah, well, doesn't matter. Treat the characters with respect or don't use them in the story."

The Sue rolled her eyes. "Anything else?"

Emma looked over the page of her notepad. "Not from me."

"One from me: we charge you with listening to fiftieth century music on a twenty-first century music player."

"What?"

"The MP3 format has been around for nearly thirty years, but do you really think it will be around for another thirty centuries?"

"Uh, I converted the music so I would blend in in the twenty-first century?"

"It would only have to look the same, not be the same."

"I have another one: if you need to add 'obviously' to describe someone's mindset, it wasn't obvious that they had that mindset."

"Done?" Tasmin grinned at the Sue.

"Done."

"Eilonwy. You have been charged. For these crimes you are sentenced to death. And we have the power and the means to execute you." Tasmin shot the Sue between the eyes again.

"How many regenerations left, you figure?"

"It wasn't mentioned so I'm guessing the full set."

"Well." Emma closed her notepad and addressed the three canon characters still standing around. "Nothing to see here any more. So why don't you all go back about your business? Doctor, Martha, the TARDIS is through there and down the stairs. Jack ..."

"This is my office." Jack gave Emma a you-know-that look.

"Then go do something office-y."

Jack grinned and decided to see the Doctor and Martha out.

After Tasmin had shot the Sue thirteen times she put away the Colt and the Beretta. "I need to restock on bullets. I wasn't expecting to run through them this fast in Torchwood." She opened up the portal.

The agents each picked up an end of the Sue and carried her through the portal into the incinerator room.

"If agents were getting paid per kill, rather than per mission, I imagine the agents in Doctor Who Torchwood Division would be the best paid agents around."

Tasmin chuckled. "We should only be so lucky."

"Perhaps we should bring this to the attention of the Employees Council."

"The PPC doesn't have an Employees Council."

-oOo-

_A/N: If you don't like most of the characters in a certain fandom it is perhaps not the greatest idea to be writing fanfiction about them. Writing a good fanfic about characters requires that you understand what makes them tick and how they would behave in certain situations. That usually is a lot easier when you like characters, or at least respect them._


	5. Out With a Bang

_A/N: Protectors of the Plot Continuum was founded by Jay and Acacia. Excerpts in italics were taken from _Out with a Bang_ by timelady1210._

-oOo-

Tasmin eyed her disguise carefully: black slacks, white shirt, black jacket and black tie. Her favourite piece of hardware in a shoulder holster. She had feared worse when Emma announced to have already picked out the disguises and pushed her through the portal. If Emma only didn't ruin the moment by singing.

"Looking back for happiness, when there is only loneliness to fi-i-ind."

"Yes, miss Urple, I get the reference. Stop singing." Tasmin looked around the large, unevenly lit warehouse. "What have we got?"

"Sue got abducted by some thugs." Emma nodded her head to a shirtless woman sat in the centre of the room tied to a chair.

One of the thugs called out to the Sue to see if she was awake.

_"It is morning, then?" she called back, twisting around as best she could without the ropes securing her to her chair cutting into her skin. "I shouldn'tve been out more than an hour or two, which would make it... five in the afternoon? You must have either failed math spectacularly or passed geography miraculously."_

"A fearless Sue. Why aren't Sues afraid when they find themselves tied to a chair in a strange surroundings without their shirt on?" Emma wondered.

"I think their brains have a distorted fear centre."

"And why is this thug showing his face to her after going through the trouble of putting a sack over her head when he kidnapped her?"

"I think he has a distorted rationality centre."

Emma chuckled. "Must remember that one."

Fear seemed to be very far from what the Sue was feeling as she started on a cheeky exchange with her abductor who was joined by his partner in crime. Then Captain John Hart stepped in and added a few cocky remarks of his own.

The thugs admitted they had nothing particular in mind for the Sue, just roughen her up a bit. Hart gave them the go-ahead and they jumped on the opportunity.

"They did not have a plan when they abducted her other than roughen her up a bit? These guys are amateurs. Last time I heard about random women getting kidnapped off the street it at least involved the making of kinky porn videos."

"Aren't porn videos per definition kinky?" Tasmin asked.

"Depends on your definition of kinky I guess. But a lot of it is straight forward and heterosexual. Just with better looking people than in real life."

Hart quickly got bored with the two men beating the Sue -- which had not resulted in the Sue toning down on her banter -- and shot them, then turned to leave.

_"Hey, wait a second! Where the hell d'you think you're going?" Mia demanded, fighting against her ropes but to no avail. "You can't just shoot them and leave me behind."_

_"Yes I can," he called back, not turning around. "You've got a pair of scissors in your back pocket. Cut your own damn self out." Somehow it was then that she noticed his accent._

"That's convenient. How did he know that? How did they get there?"

Tasmin shrugged. "I never try to figure out Suefic. I can do without the headache, thank you."

"They have medication for that, you know."

"I know, and I've also seen the headache that causes."

Hart turned back to cut the Sue loose. She forewent a thank you and demanded that he would tell her who she was.

Emma and Tasmin rolled their eyes.

"They say that chivalry is dead, but so is courteousness."

The Sue managed to talk -- or rather harass -- Hart into giving her his jacket and after putting it on and buttoning it up some made to follow him out of the building.

The agents each placed a hand on one of her shoulders.

"We'd like a word."

The Sue turned around. "Who are you?"

"Protectors of the Plot Continuum. We'd like a word."

Emma lead the Sue back to her chair, and shoved her down. "A few words actually."

"Quite a few," Tasmin added.

"What is this about," the Sue demanded, not having lost any of her cockiness yet.

"This is about you being a Mary Sue. About you being kidnapped by some guys that at first look like they have a plan and then turn out to be total amateurs."

"What makes you think that?"

"Well, when you were kidnapped you were blindfolded. So we thought: professionals. But then they take off the blindfold, show themselves to you and admit they have no plans of killing you. A professional would never have you in a position where you could positively ID him."

"I'm in a position where I can positively ID you."

"No, you're not," Tasmin said.

"There's a clue in there for you," Emma replied to the Sue's slight frown.

"So we charge you with being a Mary Sue; we charge you with being kidnapped by stupid thugs."

"Charges? What is this?" The Sue tried to get up.

Emma pushed her back down. "Sit down."

"We charge you with not being afraid or thankful, just being cocky. With conveniently having a pair of scissors in your back pocket, and with talking Hart into giving you his coat."

"Although I do appreciate the gesture."

Tasmin rolled her eyes. "You have to forgive my partner. She hasn't taken her anti-lustin recently."

The Sue looked Emma up and down. "Wouldn't that be sorted by looking in the mirror in the morning?"

"Is that you saving the best for last?"

"What do you mean?"

Tasmin pulled her Colt M1911 from her holster and shot the Sue. "That."

"We didn't waste any time on this one."

"Hmm." Tasmin stepped over the body of the Sue that had fallen on the floor. She holstered the gun. "Open up a portal. And don't you ever push me into a fic again without letting me read it first."

-oOo-

_A/N: Just a little quick and dirty Sue-killing. I wrote this when there was just one chapter to the story. At that time the story should have been classified as humour. A serious story would require a better motivation for the thugs to kidnap the girl, and it would also need a reason for the girl to not be afraid. Anyone with rational thought would be afraid if they were kidnapped and tied to a chair. Even if they do not show that fear.  
Oh wait, the main character was a teenager. Forget what I said about rationality. ;-)_


	6. Classified Dreams

_A/N: Protectors of the Plot Continuum was founded by Jay and Acacia. Excerpts taken from _From Dreams to Reality: Classified Dreams_ by horns-halos4ever._

-oOo-

She lay stomach down, sprawled on the ledge on her new building's roof.

Tasmin walked over. The Sue didn't see her as she was looking away at the clouds. Tasmin braced herself and pushed the Sue over the ledge. She grinned as the Sue went down kicking and screaming and landed on the pavement below with a dull thud.

-oOo-

Emma studied the grin on her partner's face. "You're not sleeping on the job are you?"

Tasmin gave her head a startled shake and looked up. "Just a little day-dreaming."

"Sue's over there." Emma pointed towards the two girls that sat two rows ahead of them on the bus. The agents had no problem hearing the conversation that was going on.

The Sue had had a vivid dream again that she had been present when Jack was tortured on the Valiant. Usually in these dreams she was not corporal, but this time she swore at Saxon and then everyone could see her.

"And then she woke up," Emma said. "Just before Saxon could grab her and torture her too. There's no fun in these Suefics."

"It is a well-established fact that Sues have a different idea of fun than PPC-agents. For instance, we don't think it's fun to be jostled from past to present tense and back."

"Oh, was that what it was. I just thought Americans had extremely bad roads and very soft springs in their buses." Emma pulled a notepad and pen from her shoulder bag and made a note of the first charge.

The bus pulled to a stop and the Sue and her friend got off. The agents followed. The Sue and friend talked about their own apartment; they really wanted to get out of their parental homes. The Sue's father quickly rushed out of his house to show why.

_His face was completely red, as he continued to yell at them. "Work called and told me that you called in and said that you couldn't come in." He took a breath, "Caden O'Connor. When you are schedule to go to work, you go to work. You don't call in sick."_

"If work already knows that she's not coming in, why did they call and tell her dad?"

"He was a bully to them too?" Tasmin shrugged.

The Sue said something about having too much homework and her dad understanding and then turned around and walked away. Her dad was left in the street fuming.

"Wanna know where they are going." Emma jerked her head after the two girls.

"I'm sure we'll bump into them sooner or later. Let's take a portal and look at this story from another angle."

-oOo-

The other angle was Jack's office. Jack had just woken up from another dream about the Sue and was happy to find that he now finally knew her name. He told Ianto he wanted a full investigation of the Sue. Ianto did not question his assignment in the least, not even to ask why Jack wanted an investigation of a person he'd never even heard of before. When Ianto left the office, Jack pulled out a dossier and filed the dream he had just had.

The agents flopped down on the sofa in the office while Jack read through the dossier he had kept for two hundred years.

"If he has dreamt about this girl for two hundred years already, shouldn't he have known the girl's last name already, for, oh, I don't know, two hundred years? After all he knows her almost better then she knows herself."

"You'd think that, wouldn't you? But think of this as two people using aliases when talking on-line: they may have told each other everything, except their real names."

There was a knock on the door and the rest of the Torchwood employees filed into Jack's office. They all stood in a line in front of his desk, like tin soldiers on the battle field. Ianto announced he had some information on the Sue.

"_She lives with her parents, even though she's 19. Has her own place in about a mouth," Gwen looked at him confused._

"Nineteen is not particularly old to still be living with one's parents. So is Gwen confused because Ianto seems to think it is; because she doesn't understand how a person could find a place in a mouth, unless they are a dentist; or because there is some Gwen bashing in this story?"

"My guess is number three. But I wouldn't hold it against Gwen if it was the second option."

Jack filled his team in on the reasons the Sue and her friend were soon going to move in together. Gwen found it suspicious Jack knew so much already.

"_That's classified, Gwen." He told her with a strict voice that told her to drop it, but she couldn't._

"Yep, definite Gwen bashing going on." Tasmin nodded.

"I'm siding with Gwen on this one: if Jack is sharing personal details about two young women with his team, he also ought to share with them his sources. If he doesn't he's just being an authoritative jerk."

"Interesting theory that this is Jack bashing disguised as Gwen bashing."

"I doubt it's Jack bashing. The narrative seems to be sympathetic of Jack."

Jack finally revealed that his source was too personal for his team to know.

_They all looked at him shocked that he was actually telling them all this. But he continued, "But the thing is when I die, I don't see any of that. I don't see the darkness and I don't hear the silence. Instead I get to see this girl's whole life. Since she was five, I saw every moment."_

"And again I wonder why he has never ever before picked up on the girl's last name," Emma said. "He thinks he's seen every second of her life over a span of fourteen years. Surely, there were occasions when her last name was used? Such as on the first day of school when a new teacher had to learn her name, or when she applied for her job, or when her parents were angry with her as they were before?"

"I think it's a charge both under continuity and logic. Also, charge them with no one wondering about how or why Jack is seeing every moment of the life of a girl that turns out to really exist."

"What? And have an actual plot in this story? If it had that we wouldn't be here."

Tasmin rolled her eyes. "Just write it down."

Jack took a few moments to recompose himself after relating how important the Sue was to him. Then Ianto informed him that the Sue had gone missing after arguing with her parents and withdrawn all her money from the bank. Jack was devastated and could barely keep from crying when he ordered his team to find her and her friend.

"Right," Tasmin said. "Everybody's out of character. Jack for crying and everybody else for not saying: but Jack, if you can see her life between dying and reviving, wouldn't shooting you in the head help us find her?"

Emma sniggered and scribbled down the question.

Ianto, who had been ordered to talk to the Sue's parents, objected that it was ten at night where they lived, in Seattle, USA.

"If it's ten at night in Seattle, it is six in the morning in Cardiff." Tasmin rolled her eyes again. "Nice try at remembering there is a time difference, but how about explaining what the Torchwood team is doing at the Hub in the dead of night?"

Ianto rang up the parents and told them he was with the BBC and would like to know why their daughter did not show up for school that day.

"That crack you just heard that was my brain breaking," Emma said.

"So soon already?" Tasmin asked in a soothing voice. "We've only just begun in this fic."

"Don't ignore the wear and tear of all the other missions we've been on." Emma dropped her head in her hands.

The Sue's father responded cold and detached to Ianto's questions. Ianto disliked him for it. Tasmin grumbled that if the father had cared for his daughter realistically he would not tell someone claiming to be with the BBC over the phone any particulars of what went missing with his daughter, rather he would want to know why the BBC would be interested.

Jack then had a brainwave: he figured the Sue would be coming to Cardiff, because if he had nowhere else to go, he would go to the Sue.

Emma veered up from rocking her head in her hands and grinned. "And that was just the right kind of mushy to glue my brain back together." She grabbed her pad and wrote down a few charges.

Tosh confirmed Jack's thought: the two girls had arrived at Cardiff airport two hours earlier. Jack jumped up. He thought the girls should have arrived already.

"Well, yeah, if Cardiff International Airport has excellent bus service at 4.30 in the morning," Emma said.

"It's lousy and it doesn't start until nearly six," Tasmin replied. "It's about fifteen miles from the airport to the Hub. They probably couldn't have made it yet if they walked, but by taxi would have been no problem."

Jack took the lift up to the plass and looked around for the Sue and her friend. And as sure as day, or rather night as was the case, the two girls came running across the deserted plass chased by Weevils. The Sue tripped and fell. A Weevil was about to jump on her, but Jack shot it. For a moment the Sue and Jack were mesmerised with each other and the realisation they had found each other, then it occurred to Jack there were still more Weevils around.

_Taking his eyes off her for a second, he pulled her into him and then shot his gun. He watched as the rest of the Weevils ran away._

"I think that sentence just exceeded the fic's rating."

"And Jack is carrying two guns so he can fire one to shoot the other."

"Which serves no particular purpose. Though, as a means to scare of Weevils it might just work."

Jack took the Sue and her friend back to the Hub, where he gave his bed to the Sue and put her friend up some place else. The Sue was so tired she slept for two whole days. When she finally woke up Jack was in the room with her and she asked him how much he knew about her. He replied that he knew everything.

_He didn't want to lie to her; he wanted to tell her everything. From his childhood to now. Even all the classified stuff._

"Uh, he knows everything about her and know he wants to tell her everything about him?" Emma gave Tasmin a puzzled look.

"I guess so. Don't know why. If she has dreamt as much about him as he has dreamt about her, she probably knows a lot about him already."

"She probably only dreamt about him for fourteen years. She knows a lot less about him than vice versa." Something occurred to Emma. "He's been dreaming about her from long before she was born."

"He's actually been dreaming about her since before he was born. It's been about 140 years since Rose made him immortal, and I doubt he was past the age of 40 when he first met Rose."

"Another continuity error." Emma wrote down the charge.

_Then he lightly brought his lips down to hers, the lightest of kisses, but at the touch of her lips, realized he wanted more. He wanted her._

"Excuse me for finding that a little bit icky." Emma made a disgusted face. "Jack pretty much knew her since she was five. She must be like a daughter to him. I know sexual morality is more loose in the 51st century, and I'm pretty liberal myself, but that's a line that shall not be crossed."

"Not if you want to have readers' continued sympathy. There are cases where a father and his daughter, both adults, consented to having a sexual relationship with one another."

Emma's facial expression did not improve on that news.

"But the cases I've heard of, these were absent fathers."

"Objection, your honour, relevance? The Sue just said she can't."

The Sue turned away from Jack and didn't see his heart break.

After her friend woke up the Sue went to chat with her. Jack went to his office to rethink what he had done.

_He knew that he had fallen head over heels for her. He knew that a month after the dreams started. _

The agents, who were still seated on the sofa in Jack's office, looked at him in shock.

"Please, Jack, tell me these dreams about her were not in chronological order," Emma pleaded.

Jack ignored her, too busy with his own thoughts. He thought he had screwed up every chance of being with the Sue.

"He's not just a paedophile, he's a melodramatic paedophile," Emma said resignedly.

"And you thought this fic wouldn't have Jack bashing."

"Well, is my face red or what?"

Music and lyrics floated into the office. Jack had heard the song many times before, but it now made sense to him.

The agents didn't think Jack's turmoil of being immortal could be captured in a pop song.

The scenery turned black for a short moment and the fic fast forwarded two days. Nothing had happened during that time, other than that Jack wanted to tell the Sue about his feelings for her, but didn't want to risk losing her.

"Rather than think about risking to lose her, why not think about setting her up with a life?"

"She's left for the UK on a whim; she probably doesn't have a visa. She has to leave again in six months."

"As if Torchwood can't forge her a work permit and such."

"Well, yeah, but they aren't, are they? Jack is sulking because the Sue dissed him. Meanwhile the Sue and her friend are just hanging around the Hub."

"And cramping our style," Emma commented. The two agents had confined themselves to Jack's office, because, strangely enough, that was the one place the Sue avoided going into.

The Sue was sitting on the dingy sofa in the Hub's lounge corner reading a magazine. Her friend was out with Ianto for some reason. Jack asked if the Sue wanted to have lunch with him. She accepted his invitation and went to put on some gym shoes. When she returned Jack took her up on the lift to the plass.

_She was so close to him and she wanted so much to feel his lips again. A kiss that made her feel alive, just like the last one. But she couldn't, she didn't want to risk breaking her heart again._

Tasmin yawned and started to inspect her fingernails.

"Fic boring you?"

"Jack and the Sue going for lunch? Yeah, that sounds very action packed."

"Well, we could always have a bet whether or not they will kiss before or after they have eaten the complementary breadbasket."

"I don't think they will eat the actual basket." Tasmin suppressed a snigger. "So, I'll take before."

"You know what I mean. Still taking before?"

"Sure." They shook on it.

Jack took the Sue for hotdogs and ice cream and Emma tried to collect on her bet.

"There wasn't even a complementary breadbasket. It doesn't count."

Eating their ice creams Jack started talking about how well he knew the Sue.

_He looked at her to find that she was looking at him with tears in her eyes. Forgetting about the ice cream in his hand, he dropped it and cupping her cheek and he wiped away the tears that made her beautiful eyes puffy and pink. And then he said one last thing, "You think that no one wants you, but you're wrong. You think that no one loves you, but you're wrong."_

The Sue was moved he knew her so well, but thought he was wrong about the last bit: no one loved her.

"In the olden days a melodrama would be a play interspersed with song. If this Sue is going to be melodramatic could she at least do it to tune?"

Tasmin nearly went for her partner's throat. "Never ever taunt the Ironical Overpowers like that. Melodrama is bad enough without the Sue singing."

Jack told the Sue he once materialised in front of her when she was doing some shopping. She thought she was stupid for not having recognised him.

"_You are not stupid. You are very smart, one of the smartest people I know."_

"Reducing Jack's social circle to three people." Emma scribbled down.

The Sue and Jack found comfort in each other's arms, until Jack received a message from Tosh: there had been a Weevil attack. Jack decided to send the Sue back to the Hub so she would be safe, but she refused.

"_Sorry, Jack. But I'm not part of Torchwood. And if Torchwood doesn't exist to the public then I don't have to listen to you." He was shocked, but he didn't show it. He couldn't believe that she had played that card. But he knew that she was right, she was usually always are when it came to this type of decision. "I am coming with you, Jack, and THAT'S final."_

"Right, and this is after Jack takes some time convincing the Sue that she is smart. Boy, did she prove him wrong."

"Hmm, and she is wrong too. Just because Torchwood doesn't exist doesn't mean she should not take sound safety advice from Jack. A point which Jack could have argued too."

"I'll just add 'slow brain' to whatever else she has done to his character. Though, if he managed to figure out what that sentence with the 'usually always' meant, I'm going for 'brain working in mysterious ways'."

Jack and the Sue soon encounter a troupe of Weevils that manage to knock both of them out and take them prisoner.

The agents looked at each other.

"Weevils taking prisoners. Curious," Emma said. She moved her pen close to her notepad, ready to write down charges as soon as they occurred.

The Sue woke up in a cell she thought might be a dungeon. Jack was by her side, but he was angry with her. The Sue got up and they argued.

"_So would you have rather it be like the past? Where we thought that we were dreaming and none of this was real? Would you rather have it that way?" She whispered the last part. Jack looked at her with pain and truth in his eyes. Then she continued, "The reason why I couldn't let you go alone was because who would watch your back. Who would be there when you needed help? When you need someone to lean on? Someone to help carry your pain, your grief."_

"Err, you are aware that he was trying to keep you away from being torn apart by Weevils who have sharp, pointy teeth?" Emma asked. "And that standing by someone doesn't actually require physically standing by them?"

The Sue then collapsed. Jack found she had a big wound on her leg and ordered her to take off her pants so he could take care of it.

"_You're losing blood fast. You have a gash that almost severs your leg in half, it missed the artery, but it still hit the bone."_

"I think we should go there before the Sue bleeds to death. How many charges have you got?"

"The usually: bad grammar, bad plot, bad characterization, bad melodramatics."

"Good enough for me." Tasmin pulled the Remote Activator from her duffel bag and opened a portal.

-oOo-

The agents stepped into the cell where Jack was busy applying a tourniquet to the Sue's wound.

"Jack, I'm going to have to ask you to step away from the Sue," Emma said.

Jack looked up at the agents, but did not seem to recognize them. It probably was the Colt M1911 that made him decide to follow orders.

"And may I complement you on your choice of wardrobe for today?"

Tasmin cleared her throat. "Charge the Sue so we can get out of her before the Weevils come in."

Emma sighed and pulled her eyes away from shirtless Jack to face the bleeding Sue. "Caden O'Connor, we are Protectors of the Plot Continuum and we are here to charge you with crimes against fanfiction in general and Torchwood fandom in particular.

"We charge you with bad grammar, bad spelling and bad punctuation. We charge you with changing tenses so often they caused car sickness. We charge you with nothing happening at Torchwood, while all of the Team should be very busy trying to find out how it is possible that a girl Jack's has been dreaming about turns out to be a real person. We charge you with Jack filling the Team in on everything he knows about the girl, but refusing, at first, to reveal his sources. Jack, if he had been remotely in character, would not have told so much if he was not willing to tell more."

Jack looked at the two agents. He faint air of recognition started to appear on his face.

"We charge you with Jack being out of character. Mainly because you made him cry and melodramatic. Jack's not going to think he screwed up every chance he had with a person just because they break off a kiss. We also charge you with Jack thinking you are right to claim: Torchwood doesn't exist to the public so I don't have to listen to you. Jack was looking out for your safety, you dodo. Torchwood had nothing to do with it."

The Sue just stared at Emma. She was shivering. Tasmin urged Emma to hurry up charging. The Sue had seemed to have lost a lot of blood and they needed to be done before she died.

Emma nodded vigorously. "We charge you with having everyone else out of character as well, because after Jack said he saw every second of your life between dying and reviving, and Ianto said you had gone missing, no one suggested to shoot Jack in the head to see where you had gone."

"I'm glad they didn't," Jack replied. "You can't believe the headache that leaves me with. Hi, girls." Jack threw one of his winning smiles at the two agents.

"Hi, Jack." Emma returned his smile and turned back to the Sue. "Further, we charge you with some plot holes. Jack has seen every second of your life in the past 200 years -- by the way, it's not been that long for him since the events of Satellite 5 -- yet only once he heard your last name. Second, are these dreams he's having of you in chronological order?"

The Sue nodded weakly. "He's seen every moment of my life since I was five."

"The reason I'm asking, is that Jack at one point contemplates that he has fallen head over heels for you, through his dreams."

"That's right."

"And that he knew that a month after the dreams had started. The context implied lustful craving. Now, if the dreams had been in chronological order, his first dreams of you were when you were five, and one month later-"

"I think I would have preferred the other headache," Jack interrupted her.

"I have an excellent headache cure." Tasmin nodded pointedly at her gun.

"Right. Well, besides Gwen bashing, that's all the charges I have. To sum it up: you are a Mary Sue. The punishment for this is dead, and Tasmin will shoot you now."

And Tasmin shot the Sue through the head. "Did that cure your headache?"

"Just some residual feeling of ick lingering," Jack replied.

"Do you know where this Sue's friend is? We have to take care of her too."

"No, but I could call Ianto and find out."

"If you could that would be great."

"Why do you need to kill her? She doesn't seem to have done much wrong."

"Aiding and abetting a Mary Sue," Tasmin replied. "Plus, we believe that she was only put in the story to serve as a love-interest for Ianto. We've seen it before. It's a vain attempt to excuse for not having Janto in the fic. If Ianto is paired off with someone the road is free for the Sue to jump your bones."

"Janto?"

"It's a portmanteau of Jack and Ianto."

"We don't like it either," Emma added. "But it's still better than Gwack."

Jack made a face. "Hey, what do they call it when they pair me with the Doctor: Joc? I kind of like that."

"I think they just say Jack/Ten. Anyway, if you could call Ianto? This place is not canon and it's going to fold in on itself in few moments. We'd like to be out of here by then."

"What will happen to me if it folds in on itself?"

"You'll be returned to the Hub," Tasmin said. "With hopefully no memories of the events of the past few days."

Jack made the call, the agents made the kill and everyone lived happily ever after. That is, until the next time the console let out a piercing beep.

-oOo-

_A/N: Jack seeing a girl in his dreams for a long time and then learning she really exists could make for an interesting Torchwood plot. The Team trying to find out why Jack is dreaming about her, whether she has any alien connections, that sort of thing. When writing that plot, or any plot for that matter, watch out for continuity issues. For instance, I'm not going to believe that Jack saw every second of a person's life for fourteen years, but never learned their last name. Also, if the dreams are in chronological order, you may want to leave out any lustful thoughts on Jack's part unless the girl is at least sixteen._


	7. Last Resort

_A/N: Protectors of the Plot Continuum was founded by Jay and Acacia. Excerpts in italics are taken from _Last Resort_ by Rockchick28_.

-oOo-

"A resort, that's a holiday destination, isn't it?" Emma asked. She turned her swivel chair away from the console and addressed her partner who was on the floor of the Response centre packing her duffel bag.

"Resort, noun, first meaning, a place that is a popular destination for vacations or recreation," Tasmin replied without looking up. "Or which is frequented for a particular purpose."

Emma chuckled. "So is a pub, or a railway station. Never thought of a railway station as a resort."

"Resort, second meaning, the action of turning to and adopting a strategy or course of action, especially, a disagreeable or undesirable one, so as to resolve a difficult situation."

"Are you ready to find out which resort is meant in this story?"

"Yes." Tasmin stood up and at the same time pulled the cord to close her duffel bag.

"Let's go in as Mary."

"By that I hope you mean the body Mary stole from that nineteenth century whore. And by hope I mean you better not be suggesting the other one."

"Hey, I know you by now. You always want to go in as regular people. And I have learned to accept your limitations." Emma quickly opened a portal and hopped through.

-oOo-

The portal had brought the two PPC agents to a suburban street. About twenty yards down the street Jack and Gwen were just disembarking the SUV. They headed for a house and rang the doorbell. A woman opened the door and let them in. The woman was relieved that they had finally come to pick up the girl.

"If this girl is an alien, or alien possessed, I can see Torchwood do this," Emma said.

"Can I gather from your choice of words that neither is the case here?"

"Didn't you read the Intelligence Report?"

"I heard the beep, I packed the bag and by the time I was done you had the portal open. There wasn't really any time to do anything else."

"You should always read the Intelligence Report. Not just so that those Intelligence people don't feel totally ignored and neglected, but how else will you know what to pack?"

"You're telling me this Sue can't be killed with a gun?" Tasmin frowned at her partner.

"She can, as far as I know, but do you need that much luggage for just one gun?"

"And the bullets and the silencer and a whole bunch of equipment."

Jack had reached the Sue's bedroom. She was standing in the middle of it, surrounded by a mess of clothes, books, furniture and Owen. Jack grabbed the girl by the wrists.

"_Look at me" he said holding the wriggling girl and after a brief struggle she looked at him "Now you know what's happening and you're coming with us whether you like it or not so we can either do this the hard way or the easy way and I know which one I'd prefer"_

The Sue opted for the hard way. Owen pulled out a syringe and stuck the needle into her arm.

"Owen just happens to have a syringe with a sedative on his person."

"It's called smart packing," Tasmin said. "He knew he was going to have to pick up a Sue, so he went in prepared."

"Well, I still think it's strange."

"I don't. You don't even have make that much of a stretch and claim canon on this: Owen had one when he treated Gwen's shotgun wound."

Emma pondered for a moment. "I'll have to give that one a miss then."

"It seems you have to."

"Can I still charge her for going limp almost immediately. Even if her heart rate is three times as high as it should be due to agitation, it should take some time for the sedative to take complete effect."

Tasmin shrugged. "Owen could just be carrying potent stuff."

"Enough to knock out a Weevil."

"Or a Sue. I told you he came prepared."

Jack carried the Sue down the stairs, followed by Owen who toted a bag with some of her clothes. As Jack walked out of the house the woman who had let him in shouted some abuse to the Sue.

"By the way, that is not the Sue's mother."

"Obviously not someone who cares. And also, not someone that Social Services has talked to recently."

Jack put the Sue in the back of the SUV and Owen sat beside her when they drove back to the Hub.

"_She looks so innocent" he murmured _

"I missed the note of sarcasm," Tasmin said. She studied the Words in the distance.

"There wasn't any." Emma pulled the Remote Activator from her shoulder bag and opened a portal to the Hub. "This story is showing a softer side of him."

"Lemme guess, that softer side is just there, and not brought on by alien involvement or a lobotomy."

"You could consider the Sue alien involvement."

"I thought you said she wasn't alien?"

"I don't think I said that. I think I implied she wasn't."

"Same difference," Tasmin grumbled as she stepped through the portal.

-oOo-

The agents just stepped into the Hub as Jack was telling the others who the Sue was. She was called Ruby Summers, her parents were unknown, she had lived most of her life with foster families, and the last person she had lived with was a distant aunt.

"How-" Emma started but Tasmin shushed her. Jack hadn't finished yet.

_So Ruby was given to us for one of two reasons, number one we're sort of a last resort and number two she has the ability to use Precognition_

"If she was given to them, does that mean they get to keep her? You know, like a puppy."

"Only if they manage to get her house broken."

"But what I wanted to ask before: if they know it's an aunt of the Sue, doesn't that imply that they know at least one of the parents. Or does British Social Services just give children to anyone who walks through the door and says they'd like to have one?"

"They gave one to Torchwood."

"Not entirely the same thing."

"No, I know what you mean. Parents unknown generally means that you don't know who the family is. Which would include distant aunts."

Jack explained that the Sue could be useful to Torchwood, or at least, her power could be useful. But he also pointed out that the Sue needed help. That was seconded by Owen who sat reading through her file. The Sue had been treated for self-harming and numerous eating disorders.

"You'd think that one disorder would be plenty."

"Perhaps she was treated multiple times."

"Isn't that just called a relapse, rather than a new disorder?"

"Yah."

The sedative wore off, and as soon as the Sue had control over her vocal-cords again she started screaming. Jack picked her up and took her to one of the cells to cool off. For hours Jack just sat outside the cell and watch as the Sue kept on screaming.

The agents looked at the scene via Torchwood's internal CCTV system.

"I'd hoped she would have been hoarse from screaming much sooner than a few hours later," Tasmin said.

"I believe she's had much practice," Emma replied. She paged through the Social Services records of the Sue. "Why isn't this file digital? You know, so Social Services can put it on CD or USB flash memory and lose it in the post, or on the back seat of a rental car."

Eventually the Sue stopped kicking and screaming, to the relief of Owen who had come to sit with Jack. Even though the Sue had been introduced by the Words as a teenager, Jack crouched down and talked to her as if she were an eight-year-old. The agents chalked that up to Jack not routinely having to deal with anyone under the age of eighteen.

The Sue promised she would stay calm and Jack unlocked the cell door. He took her back to the medical bay of the Hub where he introduced himself and the rest of the team.

Emma and Tasmin had no idea where the medical bay was, but they were glad it was hooked up on the internal CCTV system so they could follow the proceedings of the story without getting too near the Sue.

Owen took some blood from the Sue, and did some unnamed tests. Then the Sue was taken upstairs to the meeting room where Ianto laid out some food. The Sue turned green at the sight of the food. Owen confirmed that the medical tests had shown the symptoms of eating disorder.

"That would be so true, if eating disorders could be diagnosed by taking blood samples," Tasmin said. "Eating disorders are diagnosed using questionnaires. Digestive diseases, which are more likely to make a person turn green at the sight of food, can be diagnosed by blood test. Some of them anyway."

"Then you'll be glad to hear that Owen isn't just relying on the blood test, he's talking to the Sue too."

"_We have to bring it up" Owen said and after a long and emotional talk Owen found that his fears were right and she did suffer from an eating disorder that was out of control which linked in with the self harming._

"Show, don't tell is such an underused style element."

Emma chuckled. "If this fic had had the long and emotional talk in it, and it was any kind of realistic, we would not have been here." She pulled her note pad from her shoulder bag. "A talk like that would have made for a great story. It would have had no place in a Torchwood story, at least not if it took place at the Hub, but a well-written intense and emotional scene were it's dragged out of a person what's wrong with them could be finger-lickingly good." Emma made a note of Jack and Owen becoming amateur social workers and out of character.

"Finger-licking good," Tasmin corrected.

Emma grinned. "Glad you agree."

The Sue's recovery from the mental problems that had resulted in the eating disorder and the self-harm was fast if anything. Owen told her she needed to get some sleep; the Sue went to bed and slept, and when she woke up she was back to normal.

_This was the real Ruby once again, it looked like Owen had got through to her and that few hours sleep had done her the world of good. _

"And on Sunday's Owen does miracle cures for the local church."

The Sue even managed to force down some food, which she soon after wanted to throw up. But Owen told her that she was a fighter and that he believed in her, and she didn't throw up. Working closely with Owen the Sue learned to eat and a few weeks later she was back at a healthy weight.

"I think we can conclude from that that the Sue wasn't actually dangerously underweight."

"At the very least we can conclude that the Sue has no idea what it actually is like to have an eating disorder."

"Wasn't that obvious? I thought that most eating disorders were related to perfectionism and having control. What they eat is about the only thing in their lives that they can control. Yet, this Sue was screaming uncontrollably for the first few scenes we've seen her."

"You could argue that screaming at the top of her lungs is a way of having control over what everyone else is hearing."

"Is that what you are arguing?"

Emma shrugged. "I'm arguing that there's not enough alien stuff in this story to make it a Torchwood story."

Tasmin nodded. "I can agree to that."

"I think her precognition ability is supposed to make it a Torchwood story."

"We haven't seen her precog ability yet either."

"That's because she first had to be cured from her eating disorder before she could start having premonitions."

"I'm fearing this argument is going to run in circles."

Emma smiled.

Jack complimented Owen on the great job he had done with the Sue. After a while Owen even saw it fit to send the Sue back to school. But after her second school day she returned to her old behaviour of pushing food around her plate and being quiet. Owen decided that they did not want her to relapse. He also thought that she would not open up to him.

"Even though she had opened up a lot to him already, so much even that he had been able to help her deal with her disorder."

The next day Owen waited outside the Hub for the Sue to return from school. He witnessed the Sue being bullied and beaten by two schoolmates. Owen chased them off and took the Sue into the Hub to treat her wounds. He told her she should have told him. The Sue argued that he had told her that she should take care of her own problems now.

"I think that the thing to tell a person with any kind of behavioural disorder is that they can always come to you with their problems. The last thing you want them to do when on the road to recovery is relapse because they have to deal with everything on their own. That's what got them in trouble in the first place."

"Just comes to show," Emma said, "Owen's a medical doctor, not a psychologist. He said he'd seen some cases when training as a doctor, but he doesn't actually have any experience with the proper treatment of these problems."

"No person becomes an expert on a subject after superficially studying two cases."

The Sue went to her room.

"Is she still living at the Hub?" Emma exclaimed. "Why am I even surprised? Sues always move into the Hub. Although, most of those Sues come to the Hub for Jack, not Owen."

"It seems your question is about to be resolved." Tasmin pointed to the screen as Owen made a dramatic entrance into Jack's office.

"_Jack you know what her past was like and you brought her here to give her a new start, but you know as well as I do that it's not the right environment for a young girl to be brought up in"_

Then Owen suggested the Sue should come and live with him.

"After all, Torchwood hunts aliens and that is no place for a little girl."

"We've been her now for several weeks -- well, so the story says. Thanks to several time skips we've only been here a few hours -- and we have yet to see the first alien. Or anything else related to Torchwood."

"True, there's not even been any Jack-Ianto smooching. So far the only Torchwood activity that has taken place in this fic is that they ordered in food and ate it in the meeting room."

"_But what about the whole precognition thing?"_

"Finally." Tasmin threw her hands in the air. "One of them remembers. And here I was starting to think that Torchwood had re-evaluated its mission statement and become an institution that offers therapy for people with behavioural disorders."

Owen, however, dismissed it as a problem. Jack said the Sue could live with him. The Sue was also in for the idea. Then Owen went home to paint the walls of his spare room lilac as this was the Sue's favourite colour. The next day the Sue moved in.

Because Torchwood did not have CCTV set up in Owen's flat -- Emma argued that really they should -- the agents had to follow this part of the story through the Words.

"_I know…but it's your new start and I promise you don't ever have to be afraid again because I will always be here for you and now matter how you're feeling I'll always be ready to talk with you and you can always talk to everyone back at the hub ok?"_

"How did he manage to say that without pausing for breath?" Emma asked. "Or needing a bucket?"

"Well, if this story is actually set after _A Day in the Death_ where it was shown that Owen doesn't breathe any more... Although, I don't think canon explored whether that meant that Owen gained the ability to talk in run-on sentences."

Owen and the Sue played happy families, and Jack was happy for them.

The agents were able to follow most of this play through the internal CCTV system as it took place at the Hub. To pass the time they played a game of dare.

"I dare you to take character measurements here," Emma said.

"Thanks, but I don't need my equipment to blow up in my face to know that these guys are out of character. The canon blowing up was plenty of a give away."

"_Jack when I was a kid, I never had a good relationship with my parents, all I wanted was someone to understand me. You know like take the time to see how I was feeling. I was lost like Ruby and all I needed was someone to look out for me and take care of me. I was lost in the darkness but then I found meaning in my life, being here made me feel worthwhile and I just want Ruby to have someone in her life to depend on and look out for her and prove to her that there are good people in this world and in the darkest times there is always that glimmer of light even if it seems so faint it's always there" Owen said and Jack nodded sympathetically_

"Jack then slowly backed away and called for emergency back up." Emma rolled her eyes. "Seriously, what the fuck? 'I was lost in the darkness?' Unless you went for a walk at night in a place you didn't know it's called puberty. It's confusing, but quite normal."

"This kid is supposed to have gone from one foster family to another. She probably has not been able to bond properly ever. She's not going to bond properly now. Not to a guy she's only met a few weeks ago and says he understands here. The most likely responses are that she either is very distrustful of him and she will only look out for herself; or she will be very clingy, hanging on to him all the time to show him that she needs him in the hope that he doesn't leave her. This kid is screwed up, and she's going to be screwed up for a very long time."

"Natascha Kampusch."

"The exception to the theory. She lived through a very traumatic event without picking up any mental trauma because of her strong mind. Many professionals in the field even doubted it was possible." Tasmin pointed in the general direction of where the Sue might be. "That is, however, not the case for this Sue. She does not have Natascha's strong will-power; she's already proven that by having a eating disorder and inflicting herself with self-harm. Those are bad behaviours that take time to develop, and they will take time to conquer."

At the end of the day Jack said he needed both Owen and Ianto to come with him on a Weevil hunt. Owen said he couldn't because of the Sue. Jack insisted he needed Owen. The Sue interfered.

"_But Jack needs your help and you told me that you should always try and help people who need your help"_

"Can I slap her?"

"The PPC disapproves of torture."

"One slap doesn't constitute torture."

"I know, but if you hit her once, you probably want to keep going. Then it's torture."

"I'd be beating her to death. It's a form of execution." Emma shrugged her shoulders.

"Tricky," Tasmin replied. "I'll have to look into that when we get back to head quarters."

Jack promised he would keep the Sue safe.

_when have I ever let you down before_

"When you resurrected my body, you tit," Emma replied in Owen's place.

"We don't even know whether that took place in this story's universe."

Emma frowned. "Gwen is said to be on her honeymoon. Owen's death and resurrection took place before that. But it could also be it's just ignored in this story. Which is too bad for them now. Owen's resurrection apparently made him king of the Weevils. Could have been useful."

Tasmin tapped the keys of Tosh's computer and tried to find some live feed from the outside with which they could follow the proceedings of the story.

Owen finally agreed the Sue could come along with them. He told her to stay close to him at all times.

"You know if the options are: leave the Sue home alone, leave her in the SUV alone, or take her on the Weevil hunt, you'd think that a clear thinking Owen, Jack or Ianto would have suggested to take the least dangerous of these options. And I doubt Weevil hunt would have been the least dangerous option. Or do they think she will self-harm again when left alone with sharp pointy objects?"

"What makes you think any of them was thinking clearly?"

"Well, Jack and Owen obviously not. We've established that. Ianto seemed pretty sane though."

The Sue needed a lot of reassuring and comforting that everything was going to be all right, and that Ianto wasn't going to shoot her with his gun. Then they finally got out of the car and started searching for the Weevil. After an hour of walking around they still hadn't found it. Just as they decided to call it quits a Weevil jumped out and attacked them. Jack pulled out his Weevil spray and told Owen to take Ruby back to the SUV.

They ran back, but the Sue fell and before Owen could pick her up they were surrounded by five Weevils.

"_Ruby when I say three I want you to run as fast as you can till you get to the SUV" he said pressing the keys into her hands_

"What exactly does he think surrounded means?"

"Generally, it means all around. And unless this fic is going to tell me differently, I'm going to assume that the five Weevils stood in a circle equidistant from one another."

"Perhaps he's using the Sue as a decoy so he can get away safely?"

"That would be out of character both for canon!Owen and this out of character version of him."

The Sue ran away and Owen managed to scare off the Weevils, but before the Sue reached the SUV another Weevil got the jump on her. He wounded her, but was also scared off by Owen shooting his gun at him.

"Now would be a good moment for the Sue to have a complete relapse into not trusting Owen. He said he could keep her safe, but she got wounded."

The Sue was grabbing her wounded side and trashing wildly about.

"That ought to smart," Emma said. "Whenever I have a pain in my side, moving wildly is the last thing I want to do. Could this be interpreted as a relapse into self-harm?"

Tasmin thought about it for a moment, then shook her head.

"_I know but the sooner you let me look at your wound the sooner I can make it stop hurting" and that was enough persuasion for Ruby as she let go of her side. _

"In a proper relapse she'd need more than a little persuading that he'd help her. She'd be right back at the trust level she was before she met him."

Ianto and Jack returned to the SUV and helped Owen take care of the Sue. Despite that there had been at least six or seven Weevils out on the attack earlier, and Ianto and Jack had barely caught the one -- they seemed to have left it alone after subduing it -- the vulnerable little group was not attacked again. The Sue had lost a lot of blood before Owen managed to stop the bleeding. He said she should be taken back to the Hub quickly.

"Because a proper hospital is out of the question. You'd think with the number of Weevils around in Cardiff, and the number of people they seem to be attacking, occasionally they attack when Torchwood isn't around and the victim gets taken to Casualty at local hospital. I'm sure that by now they know how to treat these vicious dog bites."

"Sew them up and give them a tetanus shot."

At the Hub Owen started cleaning the Sue's wound without even mentioning the possibility of painkillers. The Sue just bit her lip to deal with the sting from the disinfectant. When he was done the Sue mentioned pain and Owen mentioned pain relief for when it got really bad.

"I thought having half your intestines torn out by Weevil would constitute as really bad," Emma said.

"I guess she just got some superficial cuts. It probably could have pretty much been sorted by Owen giving her a cup of tea to make it all better."

The Sue didn't want Owen to leave her side. He said he had to, because he needed to have a word with Jack. Ianto would stay with her instead. Just outside the door Owen hissed at Jack that he had not kept his promise. Jack felt very guilty.

"Even though it is probably mostly Owen's fault the Sue got hurt. Him sending her through a front line of Weevils and letting her run on her own to the SUV, and all."

"Jack doesn't know all that. He only knows that he okayed that she could come."

Owen walked away from Jack, back to the Sue, who had apparently heard them yell. She asked if Jack was going to hit him.

"_When I lived with my Aunty and she got angry with me she hit me"_

"Wow," Emma paged through the Social Services file of the Sue. "Child abuse is not in here. Physical abuse that is. Neglect and emotional abuse is covered."

"It's also the first time Owen hears of it."

"You'd think that one had come up when they were working so closely on beating her eating disorder."

Tasmin rolled her eyes. "I think we have covered the bad representation of how to treat an eating disorder enough."

After the Sue fell asleep Owen told Jack and Ianto that the Sue's aunt used to hit her. This brought tears to Jack's eyes.

Emma looked at Tasmin. "Have we also covered the fact that Jack is out of character and a woobie enough?"

The next day the Sue was fit enough to walk out of the Hub to go home. Ianto and Jack watched them go.

"_He's a great parental figure and he's a great influence on her"_

Nothing eventful happened in the rest of the story, other than that Owen smiled so much his colleagues thought it was unnatural. Emma scanned the Words till the end of the story.

"Apparently, the Sue's going to catch some kind of alien infection and the only cure for it is induced memory loss. She's going to lose all her memories of Torchwood and Owen and is returned to the Foster care system."

"Does that induced memories loss also mean that she no longer will have the capability of precognition?" Tasmin asked. "After all, that was the reason Torchwood took her in in the first place."

"They're probably dumping her because she never had the ability anyway."

"Let's meet up with this Sue before she catches her infection and charge her."

-oOo-

The portal Emma had opened brought the two agents to the street just outside the Hub. The Sue was just returning from school and nearly bumped into them. She tried to get around the agents, but Emma side stepped her and blocked her way again.

"Ruby Summers, we have to talk."

"Huh?"

"We're Protectors of the Plot Continuum and we have to talk to you about the crimes you've committed again Torchwood fanfiction." Emma pulled her notepad from her shoulder bag. "We charge you with having a bad idea for a plot why Torchwood would take you under it's wing. Precognition is not really their thing, neither is taking care of troubled teenagers. We charge you with seemingly having serious problems, but apparently they were easy to fix. We charge you with having both Jack and Owen out of character. We charge you with using poor plot devices, to wit, being taken on a Weevil hunt so you can get attacked by a Weevil. Jack would never suggest to take a little girl with them on a Weevil hunt. If you wanted to get attacked by one you could have just gone out for a walk with Owen.

"We charge you with the fact that the Weevil attack did not shatter your trust in Owen. It did not even make a scratch in your trust in Owen. We charge you with being taken to the Hub despite needing serious medical attention. We charge you with bad punctuation, and with not even getting your own characterisation straight." Emma closed her note pad and returned it to her bag. "Look, a story about a young girl who has put up with a lot of shit in the foster care system and developed some serious behavioural problems, could be a very interesting story, if done well. Done well means research the subject matter: what does it mean to have an eating disorder, how does it develop, what are available therapies to beat the thing. And trust me, none of those therapies are going to be easy.

"We charge you with telling the drama rather than showing it. Though, a proper drama about a troubled teen probably has no business as a Torchwood story."

"You don't have to be so mean to me," the Sue cried.

"Mean? I'm not really being mean. I'm just telling you as it is. Torchwood is not a halfway home for troubled teens and Owen and Jack are not social workers. Tasmin's the one who's going to be mean."

Tasmin nodded. "Ruby Summers, you have been charged. Your punishment for these crimes is death. You will be executed now." Before the Sue could make a run for it Tasmin shot her through the head.

-oOo-

_A/N: There are all kinds of reasons Torchwood could come into contact with people. A teenager with an eating disorder and precognition abilities is about the worst reason I've ever seen. Both are not problems Torchwood ever deals with. Also, to write a good story about a person with a behavioural disorder -- which an eating disorder in a sense is -- research how this disorder could be a result of trust issues and problems with bonding to people. It's called a disorder for a reason, and it's not going to be fixed with a few kind words from a stranger._


	8. miley's story

_A/N: Protectors of the Plot Continuum was founded by Jay and Acacia. Excerpts in italics taken from _miley's story_ by rosemariontyler08. Crossover with Doctor Who._

-oOo-

"Where did you store the crash dummy?" was the first thing Tasmin said after silencing the console. She could not have looked at the mission for more than two seconds.

"First person fic?"

"Multiple first persons. So I need your dummy as well."

"I don't think I was issued one. Aren't they supposed to be special order?" Emma quickly glanced through the fic.

Tasmin rolled her eyes. "They are, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have one. Always make sure your equipment is complete and fully functional. I guess we'll just have to make due with the one and hope for the best."

"How do we know your crash dummy is complete and fully functional?"

Tasmin briefly glared at her partner. Then she pulled a yellow foam cube from her duffel bag and threw it in the middle of the room. She held on to the cord attached to the cube and it inflated into a human figure with undefined features. "Satisfied?"

Emma shrugged.

"Then let's go into this fic." Tasmin pushed some buttons on the console to open up a portal and made sure the dummy went into the fic first.

-oOo-

The dummy immediately threw itself on a bed and started to cry. Emma and Tasmin turned their eyes to the Words to find out what the sobfest was all about. It appeared the dummy was the daughter of the Doctor and Rose, but left behind by him on parallel Earth with Rose and human!Doctor. The latter two had just announced their wedding plans. Jackie was now shouting at Rose for being so inconsiderate.

"_HOW COULD YOU BE SO INSENTATIVE ROSE, IT'S BARELY BEEN A YEAR AND YOUR GETTING MARRIED, IT MIGHT BE YOU TWO WHO ARE MADLY IN LOVE BUT YOU HAVE A 13 YEAR OLD DAUGHTER WHO IS STILL GRIEVING ABOUT BADWOLF BAY!"_

"Just how would a woman in her early twenties end up with a thirteen-year-old daughter?" Emma asked. "No, wait." She held up her hand. "Don't answer that. Let's just focus on Jackie's capslock of rage and everything that is wrong with that grammatically." She pulled a notepad and pen from her shoulder bag and started to write.

"Don't forget the comment that Jackie loves the Doctor at heart."

"Did she develop those feelings for him before or after he knocked up her daughter and left her behind as a single parent?" Emma looked up. "Cause if Jackie has a soft spot for the Doctor under those circumstances, I think the soft spot is in her head."

The dummy sobbed on about missing Torchwood Three and even "irritating Martha".

"Martha bashing," Tasmin said.

"The Sue is voicing a personal opinion. Even if you don't agree with her opinion, she's still allowed to have it."

Tasmin mumbled something incomprehensible.

Out of nowhere a picture flew across the room and smashed on the ground. The dummy stomped on it for good measure. Then the dummy ran from the house.

"Follow it, or wait for it to come back?"

"Wait," Tasmin said. "There's enough melodrama to be witnessed in this fic without following the Sue all over the place."

The agents got comfortable on a couple of bean bags they made appear in the room and waited for the dummy to return. When it did it went straight to bed for an early night.

-oOo-

Emma gasped for air. "What is happening?" she croaked. "The air is thick and everything looks slanted."

"The Sue decided to set off a flashback, slash, dream sequence in both bold and italics," Tasmin replied. She was talking slowly to make the most of the limited amount of oxygen.

The dummy woke with a start from a nightmare -- which turned the air quality back to normal. Jackie was right there at its bedside to comfort it. The dummy went back to sleep after a hug and a kiss and woke up again in the morning. It got dressed and went downstairs to have breakfast.

The two agents followed. The dummy was a representation of the Sue, but because it was PPC equipment it didn't matter much that it could see the PPC agents. It was hardly going to tell on them.

In the kitchen the dummy met human!Doctor, who the Sue preferred to call John. The dummy quickly and quietly ate its breakfast all the while conscious of John's growing anger. When it was about to leave, John closed the kitchen door. He accused it of playing mind games. The dummy was confused.

"_Running up the stairs, making it all about you, you're fake crying!" he shouted_

The dummy denied making it all about her.

"That'll be a first." Tasmin snorted.

"Well, one Sue had to be the first to not be the centre of everyone's attention," Emma said cheerfully.

Tasmin glared at her partner.

John rushed up to the dummy, pushed it against a wall and tried to strangle it. He threatened the dummy that he would kill it if it didn't tell Rose it was happy for her to get married.

"Human!Doctor's personality isn't much developed in canon, but it would be safe to assume he's got a little bit of Donna and a little bit of Ten."

Tasmin nodded.

"So, human!Doctor as evil incarnated would be wrong."

"Calling it wrong would be an understatement."

"Unless there's, like you know, anything to explain why he has become evil."

"Would living under the same roof as a Sue be enough for you?"

"It would do it for me. I'm just curious why it doesn't seem to have made Jackie evil. If anyone, she's the one least likely to put up with anyone's shit, and most likely to tell them to get their act together."

"From what we've seen I would guess that this Sue turns characters into their polar opposites."

John left the room and after catching its breath, so did the dummy. It was Saturday, so the dummy decided to go to Torchwood to talk to Rose. The agents decided to follow.

-oOo-

After telling Rose it wanted her and John to get married the dummy went looking for Pete. It came across a room it had never been in. The moment it pushed through the door the dummy was flooded with the memories of the last few minutes in the battle against the combined forces of Daleks and Cybermen.

"Headache inducing flashbacks," Emma muttered and made a note on her notepad.

Rose argued that she and the Sue would stay with the Doctor. Just like in canon she lost grip of the lever and was saved from being pulled into the void by Pete. Unlike in canon, the Sue stayed behind with the Doctor.

The agents looked at each other.

"Curious," Emma said. "If she was on this side when the void closed, then how did she end up on the other side?"

"Same way human!Doctor did probably."

"She whispered in Rose's ear and then tongue kissed her? I don't think this fandom actually has incest fic."

Tasmin resisted the urge to roll her eyes. "You know what I mean."

"On the other hand... the internet caters for all kinds of niches."

Meanwhile the Doctor had picked up the dummy, that, as per the Sue's instructions, was tall and lightweight for a ten-year-old.

_I was still sobbing as we entered the tardis, my dad placing me on the captain's chair hugging me tightly, "I've got it!" he shouted_

The Doctor immediately went to work and a few minutes later he had established a connection to parallel Earth and was projecting an image of himself and the Sue on a beach.

"Any takers for the bet that the goodbye on Bad Wolf Bay will resemble canon closer than anything else in this fic?" Emma asked.

"What makes you think that?"

"Because Rose and the Doctor have been lovers and had a kid together in this fic. Rose is now separated from both of them. So, in light of everyone in this fic doing the opposite of what would be in character for them, Rose is going to completely ignore the fact that she is never going to see her lover and child again."

"And thus we are going to have a goodbye to good friends. Makes sense." Tasmin nodded.

"It doesn't make sense."

"It makes sense in the context of this fic. Making sense is a relative feature."

As Emma predicted the dialogue on the beach was that of canon. Even Rose mentioning her mum was pregnant didn't make her flinch about never seeing her own child again. Emma scribbled it down as a charge.

Then the flashback ended, or, at least, the air thickness turned to normal. The dummy was back in the room at the Torchwood Institute. It thought it could crack open the void by using its own DNA.

"What part of sealed off for good don't these Sues understand?" Emma asked. "If there was a safe and easy way to crack open the void, don't they think the Doctor would have tried?"

"The Daleks cracked open the void again."

"I did say 'safe and easy'. Davros didn't care if the open void would destroy the universe, either of them. I think it was actually his intention. The Doctor would be bothered. Heck, if there was an easy and dangerous way to crack open the void, he'd probably do something to make the easy part impossible."

Alas, the Doctor would have been unable to take such precautions on parallel Earth. The dummy managed to open the void without problem and was dragged into it. The agents smirked at each other and then ran after the dummy into the void.

-oOo-

With the turn of the chapter the dummy jumped up and took the appearance of the Tenth Doctor. It appeared that the void had been a short cut to the TARDIS. The agents had ended up there as well.

The dummy leaned against the console. The air in the room got thick.

Emma groaned. "Not another flashback."

"Worse," Tasmin said after a quick glance through the Words.

"What's worse than another flashback?"

"It's the same flashback as the Sue had before."

Emma groaned again. She dug through her bag and pulled out a bottle of Bleeprin. She shook out two pills. "Want one?" Tasmin shook her head and Emma popped both pills into her own mouth. She shook her head after swallowing. "I can never get over the slightly bitter taste of this stuff."

Apart from the pronouns the flashback of the Doctor was the exact same as that of the Sue. He even made the same grammatical errors as the Sue. Tasmin opened a portal.

-oOo-

"Well, that was a waste of my time," Tasmin said when they returned to parallel Earth where the dummy took on the persona of the Sue again.

"Isn't that always the case with badfic?"

Tasmin glared at her partner. "Also, waste of time is relative. A scene from two points of view could be very entertaining or insightful, if it went into the thoughts and emotions of the two people and how each of them perceived the events differently. Here, not the case. Hence, waste of time. Write that down." She pointed at her partner's bag that held the notepad. "Before the Bleeprin makes you forget."

"I didn't take that much. Just a little to take the edge off. The screeching of all those mini-reapers isn't helping, by the way."

"Yeah, it's a bit annoying that the smaller the mini-reapers the higher pitched their voices."

"Bit annoying," Emma repeated. She frowned an eyebrow.

Tasmin ignored her. She turned her attention to the dummy and Pete. Pete had prevented it from being dragged into the void and was now telling it off for using Torchwood equipment.

"_Look Miley as much as I hate to say it, he isn't coming back… so your just going to have to get used to everything around here." He said hushed_

"Look, kid, your dad left you here. He doesn't want you. You're never going to see him again, but it's all for the best. So, stop being a little brat and get used to it," Emma mimicked.

"There's nothing in canon that says that Pete knows how to deal with the grief and feelings of abandonment of a child."

"True. But he's rich. Surely he can afford a child psychologist that can help her through this. And I doubt he is so insensitive that he can't imagine what he would have felt if his dad had abandoned him at thirteen."

Tasmin shrugged. "Looks like none of the characters is spared the verdict of OOC."

Rose walked in. She said the Sue had given her quite a scare and that it was obvious she wasn't ready yet for Rose to get married. Rose announced she would postpone the wedding. The dummy protested, but Rose was adamant.

The two of them went home. John gave the dummy a hug and told it to go rest upstairs. The dummy rushed to its room, but found the lock was gone when it wanted to lock the door. At the back of the cupboard the dummy found a baseball bat then it hid behind the door. When John entered it took a swing at him. John quickly turned around and snatched the bat away.

"_Err" I mumbled… I couldn't talk myself out of this; before I knew it he pushed me onto my bed, covering my mouth with his hand, so I couldn't scream, I couldn't even cover my head because my arms were pinned down, "so try to get away where you, so you could get back to your daddy, aww poor Miley wants her daddy back, tuff that isn't it because he's stuck in a parallel universe isn't, or should I say left you with ME !" he whispered in his evil laughter, "But still you crossed the line and that deserves punishment!"_

John began to inflict his punishment, but what he actually did the agents never found out. There was a sudden jolt of a time rift and when the shaking stopped, and the agents thought it was safe to open their eyes again and look around, they found they were at Torchwood Three.

"Can this fic get any worse?" Emma groaned.

"_OWEN is dead, now I know this isn't real!" I said_

"_So you thought but remember Miley where torchwood, he isn't even dead now he is human and immortal, he can do everyone thing anyone else can do and so can tosh!" he said happily, I smiled._

"I had to ask, didn't I?" Emma picked herself up. "I wonder if these immortals still require food. Let's see if there's some take-out in the conference room." Emma quickly marched up the stairs.

Tasmin stayed behind. She leaned on the railing and looked down into the autopsy pit where Owen was patching up the dummy. It looked tattered.

The dummy asked Jack a question that was bugging Tasmin too. It also bugged her she was now on the same wavelength as the Sue.

"_Jack how did you get through to our universe and know what was happening?" I asked_

On the other hand, Tasmin was pretty sure she would have been able to ask that question in a grammatically correct sentence with all the punctuation in place.

Jack gave a deus ex machine explanation -- where he was the god and the Rift was the machine -- and referred to human!Doctor as John. He had taken care of him. After he returned to his own universe, with the Sue, Jack had tried to ring the Doctor, but his phone was out of reach.

The dummy jumped up. If Jack had gone to the parallel universe, then perhaps the Doctor had fallen through the void too. Jack said he would look into it. He told the dummy to rest. It had a lie down on the sofa that had suddenly appeared in the autopsy pit.

"Damn Sues and their ambiguity." Tasmin looked around for Emma to tell her to make a note of the charge. "Damn partners and their cravings."

The dummy dreamt the Doctor was calling for it, telling it to come and meet it. The dummy woke up immediately. The Hub was empty, but conveniently left behind was a necklace, a dimension cannon the Sue called it, with which the dummy could travel back to parallel Earth.

Tasmin rolled her eyes. "Sure, why would you make it hard for your characters to get what they want. Instant gratification is so much more satisfying."

The dummy grabbed the device, changed its settings, pushed the big yellow button and was gone.

Tasmin turned around and leant back against the railing. She crossed her arms and impatiently tapped her foot while waiting for her partner to return. It did not take long for Emma to come down the stairs. She was nibbling on a slice of pizza.

"What did I miss?"

"Couple of contrived plot devices the Sue pulled from her ass."

"I'm eating here."

Tasmin glared at her partner. She pulled the remote activator from her duffel bag. "We're leaving. You'll be eating that somewhere else."

-oOo-

The portal opened on parallel Earth, making the agents just in time to see the dummy and the Doctor fall into a hug.

"Okay, that problem's sorted. How many left?" Emma bit a chunk off her pizza slice.

Tasmin shrugged. "They've probably still got to stop the wedding."

"That's six months away. Besides, didn't Jack say he had taken care of John?"

"You heard that?"

"In case you hadn't noticed: out of character Jack tends to shout like a game show host, and ill described Hub doesn't have doors that can be closed."

Tasmin accepted the explanation. And offered one for Emma's question, "plot consistency isn't the strong suit of Suethors."

The agents had been wrong, at least where it came to their assessment that all problems were easily sorted in this fic. The Doctor invited the dummy into a miniature version of the TARDIS. It looked the same on the inside, but the dummy noticed something was amiss. It bugged the Doctor with questions about this until he revealed himself to be human!Doctor.

"Ooh, plot twist." Emma smirked. "Five mission reports says that human!Doctor will reveal himself as a clone from the Master."

"He is certainly hatching an evil plan that involves the Doctor."

John took the dummy to a room and tied it up. Then he left to get married. Just as the dummy started to think it was really stuck now, something touched its hand. It was the Doctor.

"Conveniently locked into the same room. For someone that has an evil master plan this John is pretty stupid."

"That's the whole problem with this fic: things keep happening that are good for the characters, but those are not the things that are good for the story."

"I wouldn't call everyone grossly out of character good for anything."

Tasmin conceded to that.

The Doctor untied the dummy, but because John had taken his sonic screwdriver they couldn't get out of the room. They sank to the floor and had a heart-to-heart.

"_Why did you leave me?" I said, I felt him face me but I kept my head down_

"_I thought … well I thought you would be happy with a real family." He said_

The Doctor realised John had hurt the Sue.

"_I can't wait to get my hands on him!" he said_

"Yet, he is sitting around, rather than hopping around hatching a plan."

"Well, you can hardly expect him to yank off part of the wall to reveal a conveniently located hidden display, can you?"

"That's what's been happening in this fic so far."

"_But you have got your dimension cannon on you remember Miley!" whispered the tardis_

"Conveniently located plot device she's got; proper punctuation not so much." Tasmin sighed.

"Next stop: grammar school."

"Grammar school doesn't just teach grammar. With today's standard of education, it may not even teach grammar at all."

"The educational system ain't what it used to be."

"It's probably just going back to its roots. School is the Greek word for leisure time."

The dummy dug through her pockets, which were bigger on the inside, and pulled out a dimension cannon. It realised it could only carry one person, but rather than giving the device to the Doctor, so he could get the TARDIS back on-line, it suggested it would do that. The Doctor thought it was worth a shot.

The first stop the dummy made was Torchwood Three. It quickly explained to Jack what was going on. He also grabbed a dimension cannon and off they were.

The Doctor was liberated from his locked room and said he had seen John drop a leaflet of the church he was using for the wedding.

"You've got to hand it to this Sue. She does come up with original ideas for dei ex machinae."

Tasmin grumbled in reply.

At exactly one o'clock, five minutes before the wedding would start, the TARDIS arrived a few blocks away from the church. The Doctor couldn't park in front of the church because there was a crowd.

"Five past one? What an odd time to start anything. One exactly, or fifteen past one, sure. But five past one?"

"Any particular reason you are ignoring that they have a time travel device yet are only making it to the wedding just in time? Or that the Doctor is for some reason worried that people spot the TARDIS?"

"Cutting it close is what puts tension in a story," Emma lectured. "Like a bomb will only be defused a few seconds before it is supposed to go off."

"Then you must like that with our portal technology, we can cut it even closer."

Emma grinned and her partner opened up a portal.

-oOo-

The portal opened right next to the vicar. He looked up perturbed when two people, from out of nowhere, stepped up next to him. Then his attention was drawn by three more people running down the isle shouting "stop the wedding." He threw his head back in frustration.

"We like that sentiment," Emma said. "Rose, John, could you step to the side a bit, make some room for the late arrivals?"

Rose and human!Doctor gave the two agents confused looks, but did as they were told. Jack, the Doctor and the dummy came to a stand still next to them.

Emma picked up a lectern that stood near the altar and carried it to the front to face the crowd. She put it down and rested her hands on it while surveying the crowd. Not much of a turn up, she noticed, just some canon characters. Well, that would make their job a lot easier.

"Will you get a move on?" Tasmin urged.

"Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today," Emma started, "to charge that Sue with crimes against fanfiction in general and Doctor Who and Torchwood fanfiction in particular." She pointed dramatically at dummy. She was pleased to hear the crowd gasp.

"Miley, we charge you with being a Mary Sue, with making this story all about you, with claiming that it isn't and with having an easy fix solution for every problem. We charge you with being the thirteen-year-old daughter of a twenty-one-year-old."

"Who's twenty-one?" the dummy asked.

"Rose is."

The dummy shook its head.

"Well, early twenties then. Anyway, too young to have had you." Emma briefly glanced her notepad. "We charge you with making all the canon characters out of character. Human!Doctor is not evil. He has a mix of the Doctor's and Donna's characteristics, and neither of them is evil. Jackie does not have a soft spot for the Doctor, or at least, she shouldn't have one in this story, seeing as here the Doctor left her daughter in the lurch.

"We charge you with changing the backstory of canon characters, in particular, making Rose and the Doctor lovers and parents, yet not changing the way they say goodbye to one another when they are never going to see each other again. Rose is supposed to be your mother, yet, when she was told at Bad Wolf Bay the void was nearly closed with her on one end and you on the other, she did not even mention you. If her backstory's different it is likely, in this case very likely, that her feelings and emotions will also be different. Unless you want to suggest that Rose is a terrible mother. In which case you will be receive another charge for character defamation.

"We further charge you with giving yourself and the Doctor the exact same flashback. Yes, you were both present at the same event, but surely, you would have perceived things differently. You are two different people after all. We also charge you with making those flashbacks headache inducing by putting them in bold and italics. And we charge you with bad spelling, bad grammar, bad punctuation and creating minis. You have been charged. Now what?" Emma directed her last question at Tasmin.

"Now we execute."

"There hardly seems a poi-" Before Emma could finish her sentence Tasmin had shot the dummy. It deflated though a hole in its head. Emma looked at the pile of material on the floor. "I guess that's what the crash dummy repair kit is for."

"Exactly." Tasmin returned her gun to her bag and started gathering up the dummy. She stuffed the material into her duffel bag.

"Well, then." Emma leaned on the lectern. "Everyone, it's time for you to go to your respective homes. Jack, do you need a ride?"

"I'll just bum one off the Doctor."

"Okay, that's settled then." Emma slapped her hands together. Tasmin had opened up a portal and Emma followed her partner through it. "By the way, we really have to get ourselves a lectern. It makes the charging so much more powerful."

-oOo-

_A/N: Most authors love their characters. So it is not so strange that they want to help them out and make things easy for them. That's probably also what they would do for their family and friends: help them. The thing is, this doesn't make for very interesting stories. Throw a little hardship in the way of the characters, make them suffer. Most fiction falls into the category "drama" for a reason._


	9. Like father, like daughter

_A/N: Protectors of the Plot Continuum was founded by Jay and Acacia. Excerpts in italics taken from _Like Father, Like Daughter_ by AdoreThem._

-oOo-

It was quiet in the Hub. Which was good. It meant the Sue had not arrived yet and thus that the agents had still time to find a hiding place. They decided on the kitchenette where Ianto was making coffee.

"I swear," Emma said, "the first author I see that doesn't use the words Ianto and coffee in the same sentence, I'm going to kiss, on the lips, with tongue."

"I would say, I'm going to keep you to that, except, I know I won't have to."

_In the mean time someone had entered the hub without anyone noticing._

"Charge one, everyone too busy with whatever they were doing to set the alarm." Emma pulled a notepad and pen from her bag and made a note.

Gwen noticed the woman soon enough and pulled her gun on the Sue. Ianto walked out of the kitchenette and greeted the visitor. He asked her what she was doing at the Hub. Before she could answer Jack came out of his office and yelled at Ianto for his coffee. Ianto told him the coffee had to wait. Then Jack noticed the visitor.

"_Well, it's nice to see you too dad."_

The agents knew this was coming, but still cringed.

Ianto and Gwen looked at each other in surprise. They hadn't seen that one coming.

"_What? You didn't think I would live over 100 years and not have one single kid?"_

"I was actually kind of hoping you knew how to use contraceptives," Emma commented. She finished writing down a variety of charges relating to bad punctuation.

The Sue said she and Jack needed to talk: she was pregnant.

"Of course it would have been too much to expect she would know how to use contraceptives," Tasmin said.

Jack asked how, who and when. The Sue changed the subject.

_By the way Ianto, still know how to play naked hide and seek?_

"Eeew." The agents cringed again.

"And it would have been too much to expect this Sue to have any sense of propriety," Tasmin added.

"Even if your dad is Jack Harkness, you don't introduce your lover to him with anything remotely like the phrase: by the way, this is the guy I've been boinking." Emma turned her head to her partner and smirked. "If your dad is Jack Harkness you probably don't introduce your lover to him unless you were willing to share."

"Which seems to have been the case here."

The Sue explained that Ianto was her first boyfriend, her first lover. Jack reproached Ianto for this. Ianto replied he didn't even know Jack back then.

"_Well you could have kept it in your pants."_

"The dialogue was hard enough to follow without the speech tags, but if people start to say things they are unlikely to say…" Tasmin made a gesture towards the notepad in Emma's hand.

"To be fair, I doubt Jack would have said, 'you sly dog' to Ianto."

"Of course not."

"Probably more something along the lines of complimenting the Sue with her choice in men, or mentioning that she's a Harkness so Ianto never stood a chance. With a sly grin to Ianto."

When the Sue heard that Ianto and Jack were currently lovers her eyes grew big. She asked why he hadn't brought Ianto as his date to her wedding. Jack would get another chance though: like her father the Sue was immortal.

"Fuck. She'll be hell to kill."

Tasmin rolled her eyes. "She's impossible to kill. Unless we can come up with a logical reason why she can't be immortal."

Emma tapped her pen against her forehead. "I'm thinking about it."

Gwen was standing in a rather awkward position next to Ianto with her face on the floor. She was so surprised at the banter between Jack, Ianto and the Sue that she was unable to ask any questions.

"At least this is post _Exit Wounds_ so the number of out of character people will be limited."

"Small favours."

The Sue said she had an appointment with Jack for the shooting range. While they headed there, she asked him if he knew any real-estate agents. She and her husband would be moving to Cardiff. Jack was very pleased to hear that.

The agents, who stayed behind in the kitchenette because they decided it was smarter not to get too near a Sue sporting a gun, were not pleased to hear that.

"What does her husband do for a living that he can just up and move to Cardiff if his wife gets a new job?" Emma asked.

"_Well he has to finish a scene in the movie he's in. So he won't be here for another 3 weeks." _

"Apparently, he's a not-too-bright actor. Three weeks to finish a scene? Who's paying for that flick?"

Because the Sue's job didn't start for another four weeks, and Jack was afraid she would be bored within a few days he offered her a job.

"_Well I except."_

"I take exception too," Tasmin said.

"But will you accept this as a charge for bad spelling?" Emma smirked.

"I expect nothing else."

Jack, Ianto and the Sue spend three hours on the firing range, after that they called in some Chinese food.

"You know what would have been a fun game to play?" Emma asked. "Seen as two of them are immortal, shooting them and timing how long it would take for them to come alive again."

Tasmin growled.

During the meal Jack told Gwen and Ianto the Sue was going to work at Torchwood for a month, doing some of the work Tosh had been doing. Gwen didn't know what to say.

_Gwen, I'm not trying to replace Tosh you know. Losing her and Owen was hard, but they could never be replaced__._

"What's with all this crap that Jack can't fill the jobs Owen and Tosh used to do because he can't replace them?" Emma asked. "Torchwood's been operational for over a hundred years. In that time many people have died, and new people have been hired to fill the vacancies. Just because viewers grew attached to Tosh and Owen doesn't mean that Jack didn't like any of his previous coworkers in the same way."

"He was pretty cut up about what happened on New Year's Eve 1999."

"Exactly. Just because he hires a new tech expert doesn't mean he's going to forget he ever knew Tosh. Jack certainly, but also Gwen and Ianto, have enough room in their hearts to be able to make friends with new people without giving up any of their old friends. I wish these authors would stop suggesting that isn't the case."

"Maybe as a teenager, you don't know this yet. Perhaps they think that there is only a limited amount of friendship space. Torchwood crew would know better."

"At the very least they would know that if they got another doctor to cut open the aliens doesn't mean they'd be getting someone with Owen's bubbling personality."

The Sue told Gwen that Owen and Tosh would always be in her heart.

"Thanks for noticing, but I don't think Gwen needs to be told this by you." Tasmin glared at the Sue.

"I'm pretty sure Gwen is actually older than the Sue. Seen as the Sue's first boyfriend was Ianto, and at that time she was still young enough for her parents to tell her what to do."

Tasmin nodded in agreement. "Add making a character think like a fourteen-year-old to the list."

Gwen helped the Sue to settle in to her new job and then more food was ordered. Someone asked if the Sue had any stories to share about Jack.

"_Oh yeah. Okay let's see. Well there was the time when accidently used some alien technology and ended up with a tale for…. How many days was that?"_

"_12. And it wasn't funny. You try getting a tale to fit inside a pair of jeans so people don't notice it."_

"A tale," Tasmin said, "is a narrative that relates the details of some real or imaginary event, incident, or case; a tail is the hindmost part of an animal. You could thus have a tale about how Jack got his tail. But not vice versa."

"That would be the tale of the tail, but that tale could have a tail itself."

The rest of the conversation was hard to follow for the agents. They couldn't make out who was saying what. It seemed it ended with Ianto making an attempt to leave the room when Jack suggested he had cheated on his daughter, and Jack then having to follow Ianto all the way down to the archives before he could apologise.

"This Sue really does not know what words mean," Emma said. "Getting homophones wrong is one thing. But confusing 'about to leave' for 'leaving' leaves me to wonder whether she even knows what she's talking about."

"Ianto's so upset with Jack's suggestion that he's hiding in the archives cradling his knees. I hazard a guess that she doesn't know what she's talking about."

Three weeks – in which apparently nothing worth mentioning happened – passed. It was the day the Sue's husband would arrive in Cardiff and the Sue had told him to meet her at Torchwood. So Emma and Tasmin went up to the Tourist Information Centre to look at the postcards and get a first look at this fellow.

They did not have to wait long before a young man walked in and asked after the Sue. Ianto gathered he was the husband and introduced himself.

"_Oh right. Mac's ex__. Nice to finally meet you, Mac talks about you all the time."_

"This husband is an odd lad," Emma whispered in Tasmin's ear. "Men don't generally like to hear what wonderful persons their wives' exes used to be."

"Not everyone is jealous by nature. Some people never even get jealous."

"He must be one of those. Or it's because he really thinks the Sue is too nice to ever say anything bad about another person."

Ianto and the husband went down to the Hub. The agents stayed behind in the Information Centre.

"Shouldn't we follow them, and take the opportunity to charge the Sue?"

"Charge a Sue that thinks she's immortal, so she might throw herself at you, while her Sue-husband is there and a bunch of canon characters that are mesmerised by her?" Tasmin asked. "We could get hurt."

"Okay, bad idea. I guess we wait until she's alone. Or at least not so well guarded."

Tasmin studied the Words. "There's an opportunity in a moment when Ianto and the husband go to feed Janet, or later when the two of them are shopping."

"Two men that go shopping together?"

"Grocery shopping. Ianto's going to cook and the husband is going to watch," Tasmin replied a little annoyed. "Here's a good moment: Jack and the Sue are going for a little walk."

"Let's join them." Emma pulled the remote activator from her bag.

"I think we first should think of a way to dispose of the Sue."

"I already have an idea. Do you have anything to tie up the Sue with?"

Tasmin pulled a role of duct tape from her bag. "I never leave home without it."

-oOo-

The agents stepped out of the portal by bay. The Sue and Jack were sitting on a bench not far from them. Tasmin pulled one of her guns from her duffel bag and screwed a silencer on.

"It would be best if you stayed a little behind me. So you don't get into the firing line."

"Sounds like a good idea."

The agents walked closer to the Sue. About ten feet away they came to a halt. Tasmin pointed her gun at the Sue, and called out her name, "Mackenzie Skyler Harkness McPhee?"

The Sue and Jack looked up. The Sue was spooked for a moment, but then her face turned into a scowl. "What do you want?"

"We are protectors of the plot continuum. We are here to charge you with crimes against Torchwood and crimes against fanfic in general. Emma?"

Emma stepped to the side of Tasmin. She smiled at the Sue and Jack and started reciting from her notepad. "We charge you with being a Mary Sue; we charge you with being abrasive, while you're trying to be flirtatious and or coy; we charge you with suggesting Gwen thinks a replacement for Tosh's job means a replacement for Tosh the person; we charge you with Jack not using contraceptives, or knowing what's involved for a woman to get pregnant."

"What?" Jack pushed himself a little off the bench and glared at the agent. "I know very well how women get pregnant."

"When she told you she was pregnant you asked how and who, even though you've been to her wedding. You do know what married people do, and what that can lead to?"

"Yeah, but have you met her husband?"

Emma frowned. "Okay, fair question. But we're still charging her with making you look dumb about procreation." Emma turned to the Sue. "We charge you with glancing over the consequences of being an immortal, although we accept that you might be too young to realise the full extend of the consequences. We charge you with causing out of character behaviour, including responses in dialogue, in the employees of Torchwood; we charge you with being the nicest person ever; we charge you with having a dickless husband. Although, if he is dickless, you're not pregnant. Well, that sorts that out." Emma smirked before she continued. "We charge you with bad spelling and abuse of homophones; we charge you with disregard for the reader by not using any dialogue tags. We had to guess at who was saying what. We charge you with your husband becoming Ianto's new boyfriend. You have been charged. Your punishment is death."

The Sue seemed to have been listening with growing irritation, but at this last comment she started to laugh. "You're going to kill me? You and what army?"

"That one." Emma nodded her head to the left.

Tasmin shot the Sue through the head. She slumped back over the bench.

Jack edged away from her. "She's not going to stay dead for long," he said.

"Doesn't matter. As long as she stays dead long enough." Emma jumped towards the Sue and tore a piece of duct tape from the role. She bound the hands of the Sue together, then her feet. Just before the Sue awoke, Emma stuck a piece of duct tape over her mouth.

The Sue struggled against her bounds.

"Now what do we do with her?" Tasmin asked.

"We could stick her behind one of the doors in the freezer of the Hub," Jack suggested.

"Thanks, but no. We couldn't risk keeping her alive in this fandom. Her influence could come to prominence again any time your freezer had a melt down."

"And we wouldn't be at all surprised if that ever happened," Emma added. "You seem to store a lot of interesting stuff in there. Both in canon and in fanfics."

"You said you had an idea about what we could do with her."

"I thought we could call a couple of agents that drive a TARDIS, and then drop this Sue off at an event horizon, like the Doctor did with one of the members of the family of blood. They wanted to be immortal too."

"While I appreciate the irony of that, it would mean the Sue is still in the same fandom."

"Okay, small oversight on my part." Emma pondered for a moment.

The Sue managed to tear the piece of duct tape from her mouth, but before she could yell something Tasmin had shot her again.

"We could try to reason with her that she only as a limited amount of resurrections," she suggested. "Preferably only two. Which means she won't be coming back alive now."

"How do you figure that?"

"She must have died once to find out she didn't stay dead, and I've now killed her twice."

"All the same, she could have a limited amount of a hundred, or a thousand. Do you have that many bullets?"

"I'd have to restock." Tasmin checked the clip of her gun. "Or we could argue that since Jack is an impossible thing, she would be doubly impossible and thus not even exist. She would just go poof. No?" Tasmin shook her head in response to her partner shaking her head. "I hate that this canon allows for impossible things. It makes our job so much harder."

"Do you have a broad sword, like the Highlanders use?"

"How am I going to pack a broad sword in this?" Tasmin shook her duffel bag.

Emma shrugged. "I don't know. The Highlanders seem to be able to conceal them underneath their jackets. Anyway, something else to cut off her head with? I figure that if we keep her head separate from her body she can't resurrect."

Tasmin nodded. "That could work."

"Then we throw her body in the incinerator and bury hear head in concrete, or vice versa."

Tasmin started digging through her duffel bag and pulled out a bread knife and a moment later a large plastic sheet.

"American psycho," Emma commented holding the items.

"Uh, ladies, I think I better get going." Jack scrambled off the bench and quickly left.

Tasmin shot the Sue again to make sure she stayed dead, and would not struggle while Emma cut off her head. They wrapped the body and the head up individually.

"For safety's sake, we better not throw the head in the same incinerator as the body. We don't want it to reassemble before it's burned to a crisp fully."

Tasmin nodded. She wrapped the knife in a plastic bag so it would not leave any stains in her bag. "We also still got to shoot her husband."

"Any chances we could kill him with fright if we showed him Medusa's head here?" Emma held up the head of the Sue by the hair.

"The death of his wife may cause him to die of grief."

"I remember, she was the nicest person ever." Emma pulled the remote activator from her bag. "Let's drop the body off at an incinerator. Then we go and find him."

-oOo-

_A/N: When writing banter, or any kind of dialogue between more than two characters, make sure that it is clear to readers who is saying what. The joke just isn't funny when readers can't keep track of the conversation. Use speech tags or other indications of who spoke when.  
I think it is an interesting concept for a story that Jack has a child who also can't stay dead for long. I'd like to see in such a story that being immortal isn't all peaches and rainbows. For one, there could be angst, because now one else (all their loved ones) will live as long as they do. Or there could be lethargy: why live life like there is no tomorrow, when there will always be a tomorrow? Or risk taking. Lots of options to explore. In any case, I'd like such a story to address the consequences of being immortal (loved ones always dying on you) or producing immortal offspring (overpopulation)._


	10. My Immortal

_A/N: Protectors of the Plot Continuum was founded by Jay and Acacia. Excerpts in italics taken from _My Immortal_ by LeynOnMe._

-oOo-

Emma stepped out of the portal and was nearly knocked over by Jack in hot pursuit of a dark form. Jack steadied her, said, "stay with me," and continued his run. The agents looked at each other.

"I guess we go after him," Tasmin said.

The two agents tried to catch up with Jack. It was dark and the streets were sparsely lit. Even the author had trouble making out what it was that Jack was following and referred to it both as a dark object and a dark figure. Then Jack suddenly stopped and hid. He looked around the corner into the alley.

_He saw the weevel he was pursuing standing in place, it faced a large trash bin, looking at something._

Tasmin and Emma also stopped and hid on the other side of the entrance to the alley. They had a good view of both Jack and of what was going on in the alley.

"Ow," Emma said pressing a hand to her side. "Any thoughts on why Jack doesn't apprehend that Weevil? It has stopped running, so now seems like a good time. And I'm not just saying that because I want to stop running after him."

Tasmin shrugged. "Not a clue."

The Weevil stood facing a bin. A soft voice had addressed it. Then a small figure jumped from the bin and hovered toward the Weevil. The latter creature was mesmerized for a short while.

"Perhaps Jack knew what was hiding in the trash?"

"How would he have known? All he saw was a Weevil staring at a trash can."

The person hovering in the air talked to the Weevil. Which seemed to break the spell it had over the Weevil as it jumped up and attacked the child. Then Jack ran out of his hiding place and scared off the Weevil. The child, the Sue, was lying on the ground bleeding from wounds inflicted by the Weevil.

_He knew he had to get her back to the hub._

"Why always back to the Hub?" Emma asked. "They have hospitals in Cardiff. They even showed Cardiff had hospitals in canon."

"This time the Hub is the right call, though," Tasmin replied. "She was hanging in the air a moment ago. What if she starts floating above the bed in the operating room?"

"Fair enough," Emma conceded. "Wounded aliens can be taken back to the Hub."

_Jack heard rustling coming from the direction the weevil took off._

"What's with the rustling noise, by the way? We're in a very urban area. There are no shrubs here."

"Must be that nest of mini-reapers that was created in this scene."

"I'm so not going to catch them," Emma said.

Ianto came around the corner. He had captured the Weevil. Jack told him he needed to get the Sue to the Hub.

"You may note the charge that Ianto didn't mention the hospital," Tasmin said.

Emma frowned.

"He hasn't seen her hanging in mid-air," Tasmin explained. "He would question Jack's suggestion not to take her to a proper medical facility."

The only question Ianto asked was whether the girl was okay. It was too dark for him to notice the massive lacerations. Jack and Ianto loaded the Weevil and the Sue in a truck and sped of towards the Hub. Jack rang Owen from the vehicle and told him to meet them at the Hub. The agents took a short cut by way of portal.

-oOo-

Emma leant on the railing and stared into the autopsy pit. Ianto had put a cover on the table and Jack had put the girl on top of that.

"She isn't floating now. Probably won't be floating due to all the blood loss. They could have taken her to hospital. This place isn't sterile enough for proper surgery."

"Guess Jack just didn't want to take any chances with the floating."

"At the risk of the Sue's life."

"Owen's a good surgeon. He will save her."

The giant cogwheel rolled aside and Owen came rushing towards the autopsy pit.

_He had blue scrubs on and an undershirt. His hair was untidy and he had obviously just jumped out of bed._

"What? He sleeps in his scrubs?" Emma's gaze followed the doctor as he ran passed her.

"Apparently."

"He looks a bit like JD. From _Scrubs_," Emma added to her partner's frown. "But for JD the just-out-of-bed look takes a lot of gel and mouse." Emma made some kneading motions above her head.

Owen checked the Sue for vital signs and injuries, then rattled off a list of equipment he needed Ianto to get. Ianto nodded in understanding and Jack excused himself to his office.

"Up to this moment he's been worried about the Sue. You'd think he'd hang around and watch the proceedings. If only to be of assistance when Owen says, 'scalpel, suture needle'. 'Cause you may say Owen's a good surgeon, he'd be a better one if he didn't have to do everything himself."

"Charge," Tasmin replied.

Emma retrieved a notepad and pen from her shoulder bag. "At the very least Jack could be of assistance getting the Weevil from the truck."

"That's a charge too. Why aren't they using the SUV?"

A scene break that came too soon juggled the agents and fast forwarded the story to the start of Gwen's working day. She had brought coffee and doughnuts. She first ran into Ianto.

"_What happened?" she asked referring to the child._

"_Weevil."_

"_Oh."_

"Oh, she says." Emma scribbled OOC on her notepad. "I'm sure Gwen is not the kind of person that needs her morning coffee before she can ask sensible questions like, 'why wasn't she taken to hospital?' She doesn't know about the floating, yet."

"Even if she did say just 'oh' it would be a questioning oh. Implying a lot of 'what's going on here?' questions. It's not like people are bringing the injured off the streets into Torchwood all the time."

"They do in badfic."

"I'm talking canon."

Gwen went into Jack's office to get an explanation and just as he was about to give her one Owen cut him off to tell him the Sue was stable.

"_She, she two hearts!" Owen said. Gwen reacted in shock. Jack's eyes grew wide._

"_No, it cant be!" He thought to himself with ought saying it out loud._

"Two hearts. Oh my," Emma said. "That's certainly something to make all of them speak and think incoherently." The agents had followed Gwen into Jack's office and sat themselves down on the couch. "Does this, does this mean she's Gallifreyan? Or as fangirls like to call them, a Time Lady?" Emma smiled excitedly at her partner.

"Time Lords, male or female, don't hover in the air. And I doubt the general populace of Gallifrey was any more capable of it."

"The Doctor hovered once."

"That was different."

"It always is."

"_You know, I didn't say anything, but in the alleyway, just before the Weevil got her, she was flying."_

"_So, are we sure then that she is not from earth?" Owen asked uncertainly._

Both agents gapped at Owen. Tasmin was the first to regain her composure. She fumbled through her duffel bag to get her Canon Analysis Device. She pointed it at Owen.

[Doctor Owen Harper, male, canon character, out of character 38.4 percent]

"Not as bad as I had expected."

"That's probably because if the adverb had been dropped or changed to sarcastically he would have been in character."

Jack thought they wouldn't be able to determine that until the Sue woke up and they were able to ask her some questions.

"So despite the two hearts and the floating, she could still be from Earth? What, like a second generation alien, born here so from Earth? Since when is Jack that politically correct?"

Tasmin tentatively pointed the CAD at Jack.

[Captain Jack Harkness, pseudonym, male, canon character, out of character 53.5 percent]

"_Ok, keep an eye on her. I want to know right before she wakes up or if anything changes, or anything!" Jack said._

"He's also rather impatient." Tasmin turned off the CAD and put it back in her bag. "Most people would like to know the moment someone wakes up. He wants to know even before that."

Owen didn't give a smart arse remark about Jack's impatience. He took one of the coffees from Gwen's tray and went to his desk. Followed by the agents Gwen left Jack's office too.

_Toshiko had arrived while Gwen was in Jack's office. She was sitting at her computer desk doing something complicated that Gwen did not know. Actually, Gwen doubted that Jack knew what Tosh was doing. No one hardly ever knew exactly what Tosh was doing on her computer. _

"My guess is it's the author that doesn't know what Tosh is doing," Tasmin said. Emma nodded in agreement.

Gwen went down to the autopsy pit to look at the girl. She marvelled at the beauty of her hair and freckles, and found the girl was wearing a charm around her neck.

"She had wounds in her neck. Owen would have taken off the charm before stitching her up."

"Guess he's not as good a surgeon as you claim he is."

Tasmin narrowed her eyes. "It's more likely the Sue had forgotten where all her injuries were. Write her up."

Gwen admired the piece of jewellery for a moment and then went to her computer to do some actual work.

-oOo-

At about six o'clock an alarm on Owen's computer went off to indicate the Sue was about to wake up. Owen, Jack and Gwen rushed to the autopsy pit. Tosh stayed behind her computer and Ianto was nowhere to be seen. Which puzzled the PPC agents 'cause the Torchwood people were generally a curious lot.

_Jack's eyes were glued to her,_

The agents shuddered.

The Sue woke up. Upon seeing unfamiliar surroundings, she jumped up disconnecting several of the wires with which she was attached to the various machines. She levitated above the table.

"I'm guessing Owen's not going to ask stupid questions about her not being from around here any more," Emma said.

"Never underestimate the power of the Suefluence."

The Sue was still too weak to keep herself up and she fell to the floor. Jack and Owen rushed to pick her up. Owen gave her a shot of pain medicine.

"Can't he just give her an aspirin?"

"No, not if she's a Time Lord," Tasmin said. "They're allergic."

"That's what I meant." Emma grinned.

The Sue panicked. She assumed she was in a hospital, but Jack assured her she wasn't. She was at Torchwood.

"_Its a top secret organization. Outside the government, beyond the police. We help the human race protect themselves for the future using alien technology, and we help any aliens that come to earth. They all come through us." Jack explained._

"Look who's memorised the words to the opening sequence."

"And look who failed to comprehend the logic behind them. If it's a secret, it's hardly likely Jack would tell every alien he met about it."

"Aliens are notoriously bad at keeping secrets and often try to use those secrets to their advantage."

The Sue went to sleep. A moment later she woke up again. She said she had to go to the bathroom.

"I'm not even going to be surprised that Owen didn't query her sudden need to take a bath," Emma said.

"I think it's too early to charge the Sue with using American slang in Britain. After all she may actually be from the US."

Emma raised an eyebrow.

"Or spent a prolonged period of time there. Still, Owen might have said something along the lines of, you're not in Kansas any more, Dorothy."

Owen was very congenial and helpful to the Sue. He even called Gwen to help her take a bath as he thought the Sue would be more comfortable aided by a woman than by a man. The agents were so stunned that they almost forgot they would have to move away from the stairs of the autopsy pit when the Sue came up them. A time rift, however, made sure the Sue returned to the pit before she had even left it, leaving the agents undetected, and with some sore spots from being flung against the wall when they didn't brace themselves in time for the time rift.

While Owen checked the injuries of the Sue, the agents retreated to the couch in the corner to check their own injuries. Owen determined the Sue was healing fine, then took her to the conference room where Jack could talk to her.

_He figured that even if she was an alian or a threat, she was a kid, so he should give her the advantage of the doubt._

"With a side-order of caution," Tasmin said.

"Okay, it's a redundant cliché--"

"So is that."

"But I feel it has to be said," Emma continued unperturbed. "Are this Sue and I even watching the same show? I mean, I see two characters who look like Owen and Jack, they are called Owen and Jack, but they are certainly not behaving like Owen and Jack."

"What other shows are there that have an Owen and a Jack?"

"The Vicar of Dibley," Emma said after a moment's pause. "But they're not this overly nice to little aliens either. Although, they might be nicer to little kids, 'cause they'd be a little harder put at believing it was an alien. Could be them."

Tasmin nodded. "If it is, then this is an unintentional crossover. That'll be hell to untangle."

Jack started his interrogation of the Sue in a non-threatening way -- because that's what the Doctor would do; his word was gospel to Jack -- and asked her what species she was.

"_I'm, I'm a Time Lord..." Jack felt like his heart skipped a beat. He took a breath in. This is one thing he suspected... two hearts. But what about the flying? Again she beat him._

"_At least, that is what it says I am."_

"_What what says?"_

"_at home, there is this machine thing, it tells me everything. It teaches me everything."_

"Everything, except for proper spelling, grammar and punctuation," Tasmin noted.

The Sue said she lived in Neverneverland.

"Which explains why she's never going to grow up." Emma chuckled.

The Sue told Jack that she had come to Earth because she was lonely. She could never have visitors unless she invited them. She thought she was the last of the Time Lords. Jack sympathised with her.

_She was alone, like him, bound to live forever. Other than the doctor, she has no one._

"Wrong, on all accounts. Jack is not alone; he is lonely. She will only live forever barring accidents."

"And we're just an accident waiting to happen."

"And thirdly, she does not have the Doctor. She thinks he's dead."

"Which is odd 'cause Time Lords can sense one another. The Doctor can't sense her. She can't sense him. She must be a fraud." Emma added the charge to the list.

Jack told the Sue there was another Time Lord and invited her to come and live at Torchwood.

"Somehow I don't think he means in one of the cells."

The Sue took his invitation and gave him a hug.

Owen and Ianto came up the stairs and headed for the conference room carrying lunch. The agents just caught a glimpse of Owen, but enough to determine he was a tall, beardy fellow, a resident of Dibley.

"I think I'm not going to take any more character measurements from Owen," Tasmin said.

"I'd be surprised if you'd find enough canon in him to do a proper measurement. For either canon."

"_Hayley is going to be joining the team." Owen looked surprised, but happy._

"I don't think Dibley-Owen would say that either."

"Owen may have actually been replaced by some kind of pod person."

"Or taken a very high dose of some very illegal narcotics."

"Yes, the real Owen wouldn't be happy. He'd be wondering if Jack had lost his senses hiring little kids off the street."

Owen and Jack stepped out of the office and Owen voiced his concern about a child joining Torchwood.

The agents looked at each other.

"I hope you have brought your exorcism kit," Emma said.

"I never leave home without it," Tasmin replied.

_Plus, she and my doctor are the only two of their kind left, and they need to meet._

"His doctor? Jack, you can't die. I'm sure your broken bones mend pretty quickly too. What do you need a doctor for?"

"Headache pills," Tasmin replied. "Or rather, that's what I need."

"I think I have some Bleeprin." Emma opened her shoulder bag and dug through it to find the bottle of pills.

"I'd better not. I have a race this weekend and I don't want to end up in the positive dope squad."

"In that case I suggest we either kill this Sue now, or go somewhere were Owen and Jack aren't vying for Best Dad Award." Emma dumped the bottle back in her bag.

"I'm afraid it has to be the latter. There's a lot more fic ground to cover. And write her up for being the only Time Lord that can fly."

"Well, duh, if she's the last of them."

Tasmin glared at her partner. Emma hurriedly opened a portal.

-oOo-

Even though Tasmin agreed to move out of the direct vicinity of daddy!Owen and daddy!Jack she did insist the two agents followed the further events through the Words. And thus they sat down on Roald Dahl Plass and read the Words.

Jack, Ianto and Gwen took the Sue shopping for clothes. The Sue very much enjoyed having three personal shoppers. Exhausted from their shopping spree the four of them went for ice-cream.

"I have the distinct feeling I've been in this fic before," Emma said.

"Can't be. We only get each mission once. There's just a strong similarity with another story."

"After a while all the fics start to look a like."

"Some." Tasmin nodded.

"_see you later Hayley!" Gwen said, kissing Jack on the cheek goodbye. Not a real kiss of course. It was the kind friends give to each other when they haven't seen each other for a while-type of thing._

"That was a bit redundant. If you say kiss on the cheek no one is actually going to think she pressed her lips against his mouth an tried to sneak her tongue in for some tonsil hockey."

Tasmin gave her partner a disturbed look. "Not to mention that also friends who regularly see each other, like Gwen and Jack, give each other those kisses on the cheek kind of kisses. Either when saying hello or saying goodbye. As is the case here."

"And whatever the case is, it's also a real kiss. Air kisses, those wouldn't be real. But when lips are touching someone else, it's a real kiss."

"Agreed."

"Good. I'll write her up."

Gwen and Ianto left the Sue and Jack alone because they had some other business to attend to. The Sue and Jack went for a walk and had a heart-to-heart.

"_um, you, you're not from now, are you?" Jack was a little surprised. 'How could she have known that' he thought. But then he remembered the doctor was able to tell that too. And she was a time lord as well._

"Yes, well, Jack sort of gave himself away to the Doctor, calling him a Time Agent and trying to sell him some space debris. Twentieth century Earth folk wouldn't know of these things, so it was kind of hard to miss that Jack was a bit out of place."

"But he did pick up on Jack being immortal without Jack giving away any clues."

"I still think he learned that when he sucked the Bad Wolf out of Rose and could see all of time at once."

"Fair point. This Sue didn't do that, so how does she know he can't die?"

"The Sue seems to think such knowledge just comes naturally to Time Lords."

"_I cant die either." She said. She looked out at the lake and sighed._

"Has she tried that?" Emma perked up. "How many times."

"She was probably told about the immortality by this machine of hers that tells her everything." Tasmin grimaced. "So we can probably look forward to a full set of regenerations."

"Even though there is plenty of evidence in canon to suggest the regenerations are a gift awarded to Time Lords and not a natural ability. She seems to be too young to have received the gift in the first place."

"We don't know how Time Lords age. She could be a couple of decades or even centuries old."

Emma shrugged. "Fair enough."

Jack and the Sue hugged.

_Finally he found someone other than the doctor who was worth living all these years for, and wouldn't leave him._

"Please, that is pathetic. Why hasn't Jack picked up on the possibility that the machine of hers is a TARDIS? You'd think he'd be right interested in that. Considering this story is set during the first series of Torchwood, when Jack spent a lot of time on roof tops waiting for the Doctor to return. If he had a TARDIS he could return to the Doctor, or send out some kind of message."

"Because this story is about what the Sue thinks Jack needs, not about what Jack would need."

Jack and the Sue went back to the Hub where the Sue showed off her new clothes and Jack showed her her room.

The next morning the Sue flew around the Hub for a bit and then joined the team when they went to investigate an alien disturbance.

"Should we join them too?" Emma asked. "That doesn't sound like it is going to be cavity inducing sweet."

"I guess."

-oOo-

The agents arrived at the house almost simultaneously with the Torchwood team. The lights and siren on their car had attracted quite a crowd and the agents joined the spectators.

Jack ordered everyone to have their guns ready. They all went into the house; the Sue closed the ranks.

"I guess we don't have to worry any more about Jack or Owen trying to be best daddy," Emma said.

"Unbelievable," Tasmin said. "They are even acting out of character for the character they were first given in this fic."

When the Sue was about to enter the living room Jack stopped her. There was an alien in the room. Gwen and Ianto's guns were pointed at it, which seemed enough to control the alien. Owen and Tosh were tending to some of the wounded. Jack told the Sue to run. The alien ran after her and Jack after it.

"Great, more running," Emma said before they set off in after Jack.

"You should take a note that despite all their fire power no one fired a shot at the alien."

"While I'm running? My handwriting is barely legible when I'm standing still."

"When we've stopped running, of course." Tasmin rolled her eyes.

_She looked around. It was dark and no one was out. 'forget this' she thought, and she jumped in the air but did not come back down._

The alien paused for a second then flew up too. The Sue asked Jack for help. He suggested to her she should fly into space. She did as she was told and flew up.

_Pretty soon, they would be in the hottest part of the atmosphere and if that didn't finish off the alien, space should. She heard a scream. She looked around. It was the alien. It let out another scream that pierced Hayley's heart. She stayed there, motionless as she watched the alien burn in the atmosphere._

Tasmin rolled her eyes. "The higher up you go the colder it gets. Meteors don't burn in the atmosphere because of the temperature that is there, but due to the temperature they create. A meteoroid moves so fast it compresses the air in front of it and that causes the air to heat up, and consequently the meteoroid. It's called ram pressure."

Emma nodded. She took her partner's word for that. The agents had come to a stop next to Jack and Emma was able to write again. "Could that alien also have gone into spontaneous combustion due to air resistance?"

"It's a common misconception that air resistance is involved in heating up meteoroids. It isn't, as I've just explained. If you're going to play the air resistance angle, than the alien should have combusted much closer to the Earth, where the air is thicker and there is more resistance. But even then the alien's speed was not enough for him to catch fire. The Sue even had to slow down a bit so the alien would not get too far behind."

"She should have burned before he did."

"The alien actually caught fire outside the atmosphere. Where there is not air to compress or to cause friction. Or oxygen to fuel the fire."

Emma tried to scribble it all down.

The Sue felt remorse for what she had done. She cried when she came down. Jack held her until she was done.

The agents shuffled on their feet. A crying Sue is never a pretty sight.

"We could go back to the Hub," Tasmin suggested.

Emma just nodded before she opened a portal.

-oOo-

When the agents arrived Jack, Ianto and the Sue had just gone on a grand tour of the Hub. Rather than following them on foot the agents decided to hijack one of the computers and watch the CCTV feed.

One of the stops on the tour was the cells, where the Sue met the Weevil that had attacked her.

"_It's, it's the one that attacked me." She said._

"Probably indigestion," Emma said. "It took a bite out of a Sue."

There were more Weevils in one of the other cells and the Sue walked over to them. She seemed to make contact with them. Then she quickly left.

"What was that all about?"

"Hinting at a telepathic connection with Weevils. Charge."

The purpose of the tour had been to take the Sue to the archives, where her possessions had been taken. The Sue wanted to take some things from her pockets.

"Having pockets that are bigger on the inside. Charge."

Then the Sue asked to be taken to the roof. Jack showed her. She asked if he liked to come with her. He declined and the Sue flew away on her own.

"Jack's not only not actively pursuing that TARDIS possibility; he's even actively saying no to the option to investigate. This Sue doesn't know jack about Jack. When's she coming back?"

Tasmin glanced at the Words. "Fic is going to skip ahead a few weeks. Look, there's even a chapter break to accompany the time lapse."

The agent basked in the smooth transition. Their happiness was short-lived as the fic did continue with spelling errors and bad characterisation.

_As for the team, Owen had gone through 2 girls already, trying to find 'the right one', Tosh had made a new computer program, though no one understood how it worked, Ianto had bought new coffee cups that he took particular pride in, and Gwen had been doing well with rheys._

"I think that's character bashing. Surely, Ianto's life is not so empty that he takes pride in coffee cups?!"

"If it is, he would have been better off working at a china shop."

The Sue had returned during the time lapse and was adjusting to life at the Hub. She also had been experiencing nightmares.

"I was about to say 'don't get too comfortable'," Emma said.

An alarm went off -- which made the agents jump; it reminded them of the console. Tosh reported that security had been compromised. Something had come into the Hub, but Tosh couldn't detect what or where it was. Jack decided to wait. Everyone else relaxed.

Tasmin and Emma looked at the people gathered around Tosh's computer.

"They relax? Is this a ploy to lull whatever broke in into a false sense of security?"

"No, it seems that from one scene to the next they just forgot what was going on."

"Causing memory loss in characters." Emma wrote it down.

A few days later -- luckily for the agents the lapses were accompanied by scene and chapter breaks -- the Torchwood team sort of got their act together. It wasn't until the Sue was attacked by the intruder that the team took the security breach seriously.

"I think I'm going to charge her with getting their priorities skewed."

"Charge her with trying to forcefully draw sympathy from the reader by having all these bad things happen to her."

"Everyone loves the victim. Well, you're not supposed to hate the victim. It's bad form."

"If the Sue had acted appropriately, the Sue might not have been attacked."

"That's par for the course with Sues, isn't it? Nothing happens in a fic unless it happens to them."

The team gathered in the conference room to discuss the situation. Jack sent the Sue out with Ianto. The Sue did not let on she realised he did not want her to hear the next bit and quietly left.

"Let's go charge her." Emma jumped form her seat. "I'm bored stiff with this fic. A little walk to the kitchenette would do my muscles a world of good."

"We've got about all the charges there are in this fic. No point in sitting the rest of this out." The agents caught up with the Sue and Ianto by the coffee maker.

"Excuse us," Emma said.

Ianto immediately reach for his firearm.

"Don't bother," Tasmin said, pointing her Beretta 92SB at him. "You don't carry a weapon inside the Hub."

Ianto's gun disappeared from his hand. "How? What?"

"Hayley, we are Protectors of the Plot Continuum," Emma introduced the two agents. "We are here to charge you with crimes against fanfiction in general and Torchwood fanfiction in particular."

The Sue gave Ianto an uncertain look. She tried to fly up, but Emma put her hand on the Sue's head and pushed her back down.

"We charge you with being a Mary Sue. We charge you with controlling the story so you get what you need -- attention and sympathy -- rather than that the story gets with it needs."

"But it's my story."

"Yes, but the characters in it aren't yours. We charge you with making all the characters out of character. They all forget about their job when you are around. They don't try to shoot an alien running away. They relax after a security breach. We charge you with making Owen sleep in his scrubs, making him insecure and not at all snarky. We charge you with making him want to be best dad, and being happy about an alien kid moving in. We charge you with having Ianto not raising the hospital question, not being curious about an alien on the autopsy table and with taking pride in coffee cups."

"I, never," Ianto scoffed.

"We charge you with Jack placing trust in you because you are a kid and it's what the Doctor would do. The Doctor doesn't trust anyone off-hand. Even if he did, we charge you with Jack not using his own judgement in matters alien. We charge you with recognising Jack is waiting for the Doctor, but not jumping at the possibility that you have a TARDIS with which he could contact the Doctor. We charge you with Jack having a heart-to-heart with a kid, and with generally being pathetic.

"We charge you with bad plotting and bad plot devices. Everything happens to you, attacked by Weevil, being chased by an alien, getting attacked by another alien. After a while it just becomes boring. It be more interesting if a few things happened to the others as well. We charge you with thinking you are the last of the Time Lords. We charge you with being a fraud, because if you were a Time Lord, the Doctor would have known about you, and undoubtedly have come and found you. We charge you with being able to fly, which we don't think Gallifreyans can. We also charge you with just knowing Jack's not from around. It's not a Time Lord thing to just know stuff. They did learn it some place.

"Talking about just knowing stuff. We charge you with presenting yourself as an omniscient narrator yet not knowing what's going on. For example, Jack following a dark form, Tosh's computer program. We also charge you with the need to explain that a kiss on the cheek is not meant in any way sexual, and the same for calling a kid cute. We charge you with bad spelling, particularly of proper nouns. They ought to have a capital letter. We charge you with bad grammar and we charge you with bad punctuation. Also, we charge you with bad placement of scene breaks. I've got the injuries for proof.

"We charge you with forgetting where your injuries are, or with forgetting that Owen would remove any necklaces before tending to a wound on the neck. We charge you with being taken on a mission despite Jack and everyone worrying about you. We charge you with not understanding elementary workings of the atmosphere and space. Such as it being cooler the further you get from Earth and there not being any oxygen in space so the alien could not burn there. Didn't this machine of yours tell you about these things?"

The Sue was near tears. All she managed was to shake her head.

"We also charge you with having a sort of telepathic conversation with a Weevil. There was no follow up on that, so that was just strange." Emma folded up her notepad. "You have been charged. Tasmin will shoot you now, for as many times as is necessary."

"Step away from Ianto."

The Sue did as she was told. Tears were now rolling down her cheeks. "I didn't mean any harm."

"Pests never do. Doesn't mean we're not going to take measures against them." Tasmin looked the Sue in the eyes. "That machine tell you you were a Time Lord and immortal?"

The Sue nodded.

"The machine was wrong. Immortality, or regenerations, is a gift award to certain Gallifreyans. Have you received a gift from the Gallifreyans?"

The Sue shook her head.

"Then you are not immortal. You won't be able to regenerate if you get killed." Tasmin waited for this information to sink in with the Sue, and then she shot her. "I love it when logic pulls through in the end."

"Hey," Ianto said. He made a step towards the agents, stopped, blinked, shook his head and turned around to tend to the coffee maker.

"It looks like canon is already snapping back into place."

Tasmin pulled a bin liner from her duffel bag. She held it open for Emma so she could dump the Sue in. "Yeah, we just have to see about the other canons, especially Jack and Owen. See how they are coping."

Dragging the Sue behind them the agents went over to the conference room. The rest of the team were gathered there. All of them sat quietly around the table. The agents looked at each other.

"This doesn't look quite right yet," Emma said. "What are you doing?" she asked the team.

The team continued their glassy stares. Only Jack moved his head a little like he had heard something.

"Without the Sue they don't know what to do," Tasmin assessed.

"It'll pass, won't it?"

"We could hurry up the process a bit." Tasmin put her bag down. She pulled a little box from it and a pair of sunglasses.

Emma knew what was about to happen. She fetch her own sunglasses from her bag and put them on.

Tasmin flashed the neutraliser. "You just sent an alien packing and are enjoying a quiet cup of coffee before you go back to work."

The agents packed up their stuff. Emma opened a portal that would lead them back to their response centre. The last thing she saw before she stepped through the portal after her partner was Ianto entering the conference room with a tray filled with steaming mugs.

-oOo-

_A/N: One of the most important things to remember when writing fanfiction is that the canon characters -- usually -- have day jobs and other stuff that keeps them busy. They are not going to forget about all that when someone new walked through the door. The Torchwood people are not going to relax after learning that someone broke into the Hub, but they don't know who or how. That's scary stuff when someone breaks into a high-security place. The team would investigate it, try to find the leak and close it. They would not break out the ping-pong game and have an office tournament. They'd do that afterwards._

_By the way, Emma was wrong about there being a Jack in the Vicar of Dibley._


	11. Doctor Keira Imogene Stewart

_A/N: Protectors of the Plot Continuum was founded by Jay and Acacia. Excerpts in italics taken from _Doctor Keira Imogene Stewart_ by torchwoodlover._

-oOo-

"This is only a short mission," Tasmin said.

"Do you have a crystal ball now?" Emma asked. She picked up her bag from the cupboard by the door. "I have the feeling our missions've been getting longer and longer."

"The badfic isn't very long. We should be able to make it a short mission." Tasmin tapped the keys on the console to set a disguise. "We're going in as doctors, by the way."

"Cool."

-oOo-

The agents stepped into a hospital in Cornwall. Jack had dragged the other Torchwood employees with him to pay a visit to a doctor he knew. He asked the hospital receptionist for directions and was pointed to the Anthropology ward.

"That's not a speciality you usually find at a hospital," Emma said as they followed Jack and his team.

"Try never," Tasmin replied.

_He suddenly stopped dead in his tracks. A woman had walked out of one of the doors; she was looking through some sheets attached to clipboard and was oblivious to Jack staring at her. Her long brown hair ran down her back, and her blue eyes darted across the page she was reading. She walked in away that ballerinas could achieve in their dreams. She wore leg hugging jeans, and a plain white vest top, and a white Doctor's coat over it. She had a slight smile on her lips, and she was very, very beautiful. Owen and Ianto both stared with open mouths._

"I hazard a guess, and say that is our Sue."

"Have you got a crystal ball too?"

"I have one of those snowballs. If you shake them it snows glitter. Speaking of which, I wonder what happens if I shake this Sue."

Jack ran after the Sue, and said he needed her help with a friend of a friend. She asked if the patient was still alive, and when Jack confirmed this, announced she only worked with dead people.

"That's very encouraging for the patients at this hospital," Emma said.

"I think they're glad they don't have to deal with a Sue, but will receive proper medical care only."

"Good point."

It appeared Jack had not only brought the rest of the team with him, but also had packed the Cyberwoman into the SUV. Without any of them noticing. The Sue examined the half-converted woman while Ianto told her about Lisa.

"Conveniently forgetting the part where Jack ordered him to execute her."

"I thought Lisa had transferred her brain to the head of the pizza girl," Emma said. "The Cyberwoman is dead, brainless."

"Even if that hadn't happened, Jack would never, ever, think a Cyberman could be converted back into a person. As far as he is concerned the person that once was is dead, and deserves our pity. The Cyberman does not. It should be killed."

The Sue asked Jack what he wanted her to do.

_Jack looked at her, "Isn't it obvious? I want you to save her! Make her human again!"_

"No, that is not what Jack wants." Tasmin glared at the Sue. "That is the complete opposite of what Jack wants. I take it you weren't there when the Hub was under siege when the Cyberwoman started strutting her stuff? Or when she had put Lisa's brain in the pizza girl and suggested to convert Ianto too? He knows a human once converted can never be turned back."

"_Is that even possible?" Ianto asked quietly._

"You're the one that wanted to do it in the first place. Or have you finally come to your senses and given up this ridiculous idea?"

The Sue confirmed it was possible to make Lisa human again. She'd have to pull in a few favours – probably from a number of people that did not know yet they had a death wish. Owen was the only one who objected to the situation. The Sue left for a moment, so that the Torchwood people could talk things over and to give Jack an opportunity to sing of her brilliance. She came running back and threw a sheet over Lisa.

Tasmin produced a clipboard from her duffel bag and gave it to Emma. She figured this way the agents could look busy in case the self-absorbed Sue glanced in their direction.

Then a man came to the room; the Sue blocked his access. The badge above his breast pocket said he was the chief of the hospital. It had come to his attention that there was a Cyberman in this room and he came to tell that all traces of Cybermen would have to be destroyed.

"A very sensible regulation."

Jack managed to convince the chief nothing problematic was going on and the man left.

In the mean time Toshiko had pulled the Sue's CV off the Internet, and started listing the achievements Jack had left out.

_Her job title is Anthropologist at the moment even though she usually ends up taking all the patients that are too difficult for the other Doctors._

"An anthropologist is not a medical doctor," Tasmin said. "It's a sort of sociologist. Anthropologists study human behaviour, how humans behave in their societies. They do not deal with individual people, and they most definitely don't do anything to 'fix' these humans."

On the other side of the room Jack was trying to talk some 'sense' into Owen. Owen blew up at him, and the Sue told him off for raising his voice in a hospital. This shocked Owen into silence.

"Probably thinking, 'I'm surrounded by idiots'," Emma said.

The Sue's hair had been crackling when she talked to Owen, but this went unnoticed by the agents.

The chief returned to the room, and blew up at the Sue for bringing a Cyberman into the hospital.

"Funny who she doesn't tell him he's waking up the patients."

Rather, the Sue told him that 'technically' she had not brought the Cyberman in.

"Yeah, that makes all the difference." Tasmin rolled her eyes.

It seemed to work on the chief, because he told the Sue to get rid of the Cyberman and left again.

The agents stared after him.

"If he really wanted to be rid of it, he should have made arrangements himself for it to be taken away," Tasmin said.

"Careful there," Emma said. "Sue doesn't like you calling the Cyberwoman it."

Tasmin spun around to her partner. "Sues don't get to dictate what I say and do. I tell them."

A time rift occurred and the agents suddenly found themselves in the Sue's office. They quickly dove behind a large potted plant. The Sue did not seem to notice this change in her office's furbishings.

Owen knocked on the door and entered. He wanted to apologise for what he had said earlier.

Both agents clasped a hand over their mouth to prevent themselves from shouting out what they thought, and thus giving away their position and putting themselves in a predicament.

The Sue revealed to have a noble motivation to try and save Lisa.

_I refuse to let anymore human's suffer from their invasion._

Emma pulled her notepad from her bag and scribbled something on it and showed it to Tasmin. "Except all those humans that are going to suffer when the Cyberman wakes up and goes on a murdering rampage."

Tasmin took the pad and scribbled a reply. "Don't forget all the humans that suffer from the bad punctuation."

Emma suppressed a chuckle.

The story paused a moment for a new chapter, and continued two weeks later. In that time the Torchwood people had crashed at a nearby hotel so they could regularly visit the hospital. The Sue had undergone a transformation.

_A few weeks later in the hospital canteen, early morning Aqua came striding through the door._

"It looks like the Sue, it walks like the Sue…"

"It is the Sue," Tasmin said. "The author just found a rather bad way to introduce the Sue's alter ego. Namely, by alternating at using the two names."

The Sue announced that the next day she would start surgery on the Cyberwoman, and she would start on her legs.

"Wouldn't it make more sense to start on her brain? The part of her that controls all the other parts? Cut that off and even I think she has a fighting chance to be turned human again."

"Would make sense to you, but you're not the Sue in charge."

Owen asked the Sue how she convinced the chief to let her work on the Cyberwoman. She alluded she had slept with him.

"She most have literary fucked his brains out," Emma commented.

"Yeah, I think we should talk to her, before she causes us brain damage as well."

The agents stood up from the table in the canteen they had been sitting at ever since the story had removed them from the Sue's office. They walked over to the table where the Sue and Owen sat.

"Look at the two of you being all chummy," Emma said. "Doctor Keira Imogene Stewart, we'd like a word. About the Cyberwoman."

"Not just about the Cyberwoman," Tasmin added.

"How do you know about that?" the Sue demanded. "I've managed to keep Lisa hidden from all the doctors and patients at this hospital."

"We don't work at the hospital," Tasmin said. "We're protectors of the plot continuum, and we'd like to charge you with crimes against Torchwood fanfiction."

"I don't even need my notepad for this," Emma said. "We charge you with being a Mary Sue. We charge you with being a brilliant medical doctor and brilliant at robotics and cybernetics, and working as an anthropologist. We charge you with not knowing what it is an anthropologist does."

"What makes you think that I don't know what an anthropologist does?" the Sue huffed.

"You have an anthropologist ward at the hospital. If you knew what an anthropologist does you'd know it wasn't a medical profession," Tasmin explained.

"We charge you with disrupting the characters of the Torchwood team. We charge you with Jack bringing a Cyberman to you and asking you to convert it. He would never do that. We charge you with Owen being the only one to object to that. We also charge you with Owen apologising to you for objecting to it. We charge you with having all the Torchwood people move to Cornwall so they could be close by during whatever it is that you do. Would have been much simpler to move you to Cardiff. We charge you with using Toshiko as a puppet that reads out your CV. We charge you with suddenly changing your name to Aqua."

The hair of the Sue started crackling.

"And we charge you with the usual bad grammar, bad spelling and bad punctuation." Emma gave the Sue a smirk. "Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

The Sue flew up, but before she could attack the agent, Tasmin had pulled her gun and shot the Sue. The Sue lay on the floor, writhing.

Emma regained her composure. The sudden attack of the Sue had given her the shakes. "You have been charged. Your punishment is death. Tasmin will shoot you."

One final bullet finished the job.

"Told you this was going to be a short mission. You want to see what happens if you shake the Sue?" Tasmin asked as she returned her gun to the duffel bag.

"I think I'll pass," Emma said with a hand on her chest and a slightly nauseous facial expression.

-oOo-

_A/N: Pay attention to what the characters say and do in canon. Jack was not at all pleased when he found out Ianto had been hiding a Cyberman at the Hub. Though I don't think Jack is above double standards, I doubt he would keep a Cyberman hidden at the Hub himself in the vain hope that one day she could be converted back to a normal person. Which means, if you want to convince me otherwise, you have a lot of explaining to do and can't get away with just stating it as a fact that he did._


	12. Domestic Violence

_A/N: Protectors of the Plot Continuum was founded by Jay and Acacia. This mission goes into _Domestic Violence_ written by gwencooper08._

-oOo-

Emma was rather enjoying herself, humming a tune while walking down one of the many corridors of PPC Headquarters. She didn't know where she was. All the corridors where painted and carpeted in the same dull grey and the doors showed non-sequential numbers. She wondered if HQ had once been used as ransom payment. Then she heard a familiar sound, or rather sounds, a loud beep followed by some choice words by the responding agent. She recognized the voice of the agent, it was her partner, but she was unfamiliar with her choice of words. She didn't think Tasmin was prone to swearing. This must be a rather unique mission.

Emma stopped humming her tune and quickly picked up pace to find out what was going on. When she turned into her response centre Tasmin had already opened up a portal.

"Emergency exorcism," was all the agent said before she jumped into the fic.

Emma quickly looked around if there was anything she should take. She figured her partner had already taken care of everything that was needed and she jumped through the portal after her.

-oOo-

Emma did not have much time to assess the situation: Gwen was on the ground crying and Rhys was hovering over her in a threatening manner. He pulled his fist back, but before he could punch Gwen there were two PPC agents hanging onto his arms trying to wrestle him to the ground. Rhys wasn't a tall man, but he was considerably heavier than the two PPC agents. In a joint effort, the latter managed to get the upper hand and a moment later Rhys was lying face down on the ground and the two agents sat on him.

"What's going on here?" Emma asked.

Tasmin briefly gestured towards the Words before she started digging through her duffel bag.

"Domestic Violence," Emma read.

"Yeah, someone thought it a good idea to drive a wedge between them by turning Rhys into a wife beater."

"That's insane. Rhys isn't abusive of Gwen. He never even calls her a bad name. He's as cuddly as he looks."

"As Martha says, later in this story, people change."

"Not like this."

"That's why we have to do an exorcism."

"All of them." Emma nodded towards the Words.

"No, I think we will be all right once we've sorted out Rhys. If he doesn't beat Gwen the rest of the Team doesn't get involved. Here." Tasmin gave Emma a box of candles. "You set these up while I get the rest of the stuff."

Emma scrambled up and started setting up the candles in a circle around Rhys. Both he and Gwen looked at the agent kind of sheepishly. After lighting the candles Emma joined her partner on the outside of the circle.

Tasmin had lain the Torchwood series one DVD box set on Rhys and held series two in her hand. She raised her voice. "Begone, Author of this fic. Get the behind me contrived plot device! Get the behind me corrupter of Rhys's character! The power of Russell T Davies compels you. You have no more power in this continuum."

The shades of the Author rose from Rhys's back forming into one figure hovering above him.

The shade moaned, "Rhys is no good for Gwen."

"You may think that, but that doesn't mean Rhys is an abusive husband. He's loving and carrying," Emma argued. "Heck, he's too good for Gwen."

"Begone, Author of this fic!" Tasmin repeated.

The shade moaned some more and then evaporated.

"Good. I guess we should clean up in here." Tasmin returned the DVDs to her bag.

Emma started blowing out the candles and gathering them up. She returned them to their box.

"Do you have some Retcon around the house?" Tasmin asked Gwen. Gwen nodded slightly. "I won't ask why, but I suggest that the two of you take some to forget about this whole episode." Gwen nodded again.

When everything that Tasmin had taken from her bag was returned to it, she grabbed the remote activator and opened a portal. Shaking their heads the agents went back to their response centre.

-oOo-

_A/N: It's fine if you don't like Rhys. It's fine if you think Gwen should be with Jack or Owen or Andy or whoever. It's not fine if you use domestic abuse as a motivator to get Gwen to leave Rhys. It goes against his character as established so far in canon, and as such it's a contrived plot device. At the very least give a little more motivation for the sudden change of character than "people change" and a large intake of alcohol. Not everyone becomes aggressive after too much alcohol, some people turn quite giggly. Rhys is more likely to be of the latter category._


	13. Riftangel

_A/N: Protectors of the Plot Continuum was founded by Jay and Acacia. Excerpts in italics taken from _Riftangel_ by Torchedgirl._

-oOo-

As soon as the agents entered the fic they were thrown off their feet.

"Time rift already?" Emma shouted.

"No, it appears there is a Rift-quake."

The whole Hub was shaking and the Torchwood Team were holding on to railings, door frames and each other for dear life. Gwen was injured when part of the roof came down. Then the quake stopped.

The agents scrambled to their feet and took inventory of the damages.

Gwen was bleeding profusely from a wound in her side. Owen picked her up and rushed her down to the Autopsy Pit to see to her injuries. Ianto had a large gash on his shin, but wasn't complaining.

"Why do people think that characters that keep to themselves mostly don't even ask for help when they need medical attention?" Tasmin asked. "They're loners, not morbidly stupid."

Jack helped Ianto down to the Autopsy Pit where Owen tended to his wound after he had taken care of Gwen. In the mean time Tosh returned to her computer to assess the damages. She reported that she had found the cause of the Rift activity. Some sort of angelic creature. Jack decided that he, Owen and Tosh would check it out. He instructed Ianto to make Gwen some coffee and sit with her.

While Jack and the others drove to the scene of the angelic creature, the agents took a portal.

-oOo-

A small area had been cordoned off by the police. Team Torchwood just sauntered past the barrier. Owen hurried forward to the creature when he noticed it was injured. His doctor instincts took over.

The agents had taken position among the crowd on the other side of the police tape.

"Just think, Torchwood has to retcon all these people," Emma whispered.

"Torchwood has become decidedly slack about retcon," Tasmin replied. "They're a public secret themselves."

When Owen was almost next to the creature it unfolded one of its wings. Owen staggered back and fell. The creature got up.

_In his opinion she was a perfectly normal woman, 19 years old with injuries from a fall. The only thing 'wrong' with her was the fact that she had white wings._

"Perfectly normal women don't have wings."

The woman fainted. Jack and Owen picked her up and carried her over to the SUV.

The agents were transplanted to the Archives. Which is a nice way of saying that the scene shift propelled them to the Hub and threw them against some wall to wall filing cabinets.

"I hate absent scene breaks," Emma growled as she scrambled to her feet.

"The FLF must have switched to automatic again." Tasmin opened her bag to search for the offending piece of equipment.

"I hate FLFs with wobbly switches too."

Before Tasmin could set the FLF to manual both agents were thrown into the Autopsy Pit.

"I really hate these things." Emma propped her self up on an elbow. She didn't see the point in getting up completely. "Why were we down in the Archives in the first place?"

"Apparently we needed to be told that Ianto likes to be in the Archives." Tasmin had gotten to her feet and studied the Words. She turned to give her partner a disapproving look.

Behind her, in the Autopsy Pit, Owen began a full diagnosis of the creature. Jack checked on Gwen. Then the creature was placed in a cell.

"That was a rather quick full analysis," Emma noted.

"How much time does it really take to diagnose a Sue?"

Owen ran some blood tests and was shocked at the results he found. Jack came to look at his computer over his shoulder.

Tasmin ran up the stairs to look over Owen's other shoulder.

_It showed an image of a 3D human. Then a load of graphs popped up on the page. Jack looked at them and shrugged his shoulders._

"_Look at this. Right this is an average human," explained Owen. "And this is our new lodger…notice a similarity?"_

"…_Yeah…but, that means that…she's human!" Jack asked, realising what Owen was showing him._

"Uh, no. Humanoid perhaps. Wouldn't go as far as calling her human."

Owen then pulled up some of the Sue's DNA -- showing it in a 3D-model of the double helix -- and showed that some of the sequences were different from human DNA.

"Exactly what I said: not human, humanoid."

"Did he get a supercomputer because he's been such a good boy?" Emma asked.

Tasmin was so engrossed with the picture that her partner's question startled her. "Torchwood has excellent funding."

Jack decided to call everyone together in the Boardroom, except for Ianto as he figured him to be busy.

"Ignoring Ianto as a valued member of the team." Emma made a note. "Even if this alternate reality, there is no reason to dismiss a character like that."

"It seems he and Jack have issues."

"They have issues all right."

The agents sat down in the Boardroom with the others and Owen started his slide show.

"_If you look at the DNA, she has the same DNA as us…only there's some parts that have been added."_

"Humans have 96 percent of their DNA in common with chimpanzees," Tasmin said. "You would have sounded less silly if you had deducted she was human from her blood group. That's probably also quicker to determine than a full DNA analysis."

Owen explained that he thought the added DNA came from an animal.

_Here are the genes that depict what limbs an average human will grow, it has been replaced with an eagle gene._

"That's a rather simplistic representation of the number of genes that are actually involved in growing limbs. Besides, it doesn't explain why she has two legs, two arms **and **two wings," Tasmin pointed out. "She'd require both eagle wing genes and human limb genes for that. Plus, even though the human genome has been mapped, this does not mean that scientists also know what the function is of individual genes, like which genes are needed to grow limbs. The eagle genome has not been mapped and identified yet. Owen can't even know these things without Torchwood having access to a DNA database from the future."

Jack pointed out that this was years ahead of their time.

"That's what I said."

Then Owen showed his most shocking discovery: the Sue had a tattoo of the Torchwood logo on her left ankle.

"_We did this to her, that's our logo!" Cried Gwen_

Jack started barking orders. To Owen to check Torchwood's history of experiments, to Tosh to find the winged woman in their records, to Gwen to find Ianto.

The agents followed Gwen and Jack, who went down to the Archives together. Jack said they should give the Sue a name because she was human.

"The man named the Weevil," Tasmin grumbled. "I doubt its humanity was a consideration there."

Ianto limped into the corridor. He looked absent mindedly when Jack called out to him. Jack told him he needed to identify and name the Sue. Ianto asked him why he didn't use the computers.

_He was curious to why Jack hadn't used the Hub computers; the team never asked him about anything from the archives._

Emma and Tasmin both rolled their eyes. "I guess dismissing Ianto's character is running rampant in this fic. Even he is doing it," Emma said.

Ianto went with Gwen and Jack to the cells to take a look at the Sue.

The agents joined them, but tried to stay out of the line of vision of the Sue.

The Sue was rolled up into a ball on the floor. Ianto recognised her immediately.

_He took in a deep breath at her stark beauty._

"Stark beauty?" Emma asked. "Is that the same as stark nonsense?"

"Probably," Tasmin replied. "Though, here I think is meant that the Sue was butt naked."

"Ianto called the Sue Lily and she woke up. She got up and walked to the glass wall. She asked to be let out.

"She's perceptive," Tasmin said. "She was unconscious when she went into that cell."

"She probably woke up before. This fic is very fuzzy about how long it took Owen to run his tests."

"I'm sure they took less time then they should have."

Gwen came closer to the glass, which startled the Sue. Gwen assured her she wouldn't hurt her. The Sue now approached her, her head cocked with curiosity, but when Jack stepped up to the glass the Sue dove away and cowered at the far end of the cell. Jack realised this was because he had aimed his gun at her when they first met.

"_I assure you that I won't shoot you…see." Jack pulled out his gun and tossed it across the cell area._

Tasmin caught the Webley Revolver with her foot and picked it up.

"Great, we've got an imposter!Jack here," Emma said. "Shall I start looking for the real one?"

"One moment." Tasmin pulled the Canon Analysis Device from her bag and pointed it at Jack. "He's canon," she read out. "Just not very much in character."

Jack opened the cell door and Ianto walked in to help the Sue up.

"Exactly what part of 'Torchwood Experiment' spells 'not likely to be dangerous'?" Emma asked. "Okay, presumably _Sleeper_ hasn't happened yet in this reality, but that doesn't mean none of them had enough imagination to contemplate the possibility of a weapon in disguise."

"Perhaps they trust Ianto's judgement that she's no danger."

"That would be the first time in this fic they trust Ianto. And what poor timing they have."

Tasmin nodded. "Even if they had had trust in him before, they still should have asked him first how he knew the Sue and what he knows about her."

Ianto led the Sue out of her cell and to the Boardroom.

When Jack walked past the agents Tasmin returned his gun to him. "Try to be more careful where you throw this next time. It's nearly an antique."

Jack smirked. "Do you have any idea how much it pained me to part with this weapon?" He stuffed the Webley back in his holster. "I guess I'll be seeing you two again later?"

"We'll try not to be too long," Emma replied.

-oOo-

Ianto sat the Sue down in the Boardroom and then he went to fix some beverages. When he returned Jack started the meeting.

The agents positioned themselves at Gwen's workstation and tapped into the CCTV from the Boardroom. Now that the Sue was conscious they couldn't get any closer.

"Have you fixed the audio link yet?" Emma asked. "I haven't heard Owen make any snarky comments about her nudity."

"Audio's fine. He hasn't made any snarky comments. Neither has anyone else said anything about her nudity."

"Not even to mention that she'd need clothes?"

"Nope."

"Careless." Emma made a note on the charge sheet.

Jack introduced his team and then he asked the Sue to introduce herself.

"_My…my name is experiment eight zero two, codename…Lily. I was created in a Laboratory in London in the year 1940. The scientists…were part of Torchwood. They spliced my DNA using a piece of alien technology that fell through a Rift near Glasgow soon after Torchwood was created. I was created to finish the war, as the Royal family was in danger."_

"This guinea pig knows a lot about herself."

"Perhaps she read the lab journals."

The Sue continued her story: on the day of her first training exercise she fell through the Rift. Jack then told her that the war was over and that she was at Torchwood Cardiff.

_I expect that you were briefed on what Torchwood does?_

"Why would Torchwood brief their guinea pigs on what Torchwood does?"

Tasmin shrugged. "Probably to save Jack from having to repeat the opening credits' voice over. For her, it makes no sense. They created her as a weapon. All she'd need to know was how to be weaponry and destroy the enemy. I doubt that would require much knowledge about what Torchwood actually does."

The Sue further explained that she learned to fly at the age of seventeen.

"1940 plus seventeen makes 1957. War was long over by then," Emma said.

"Unless she's counting in bird years," Tasmin said. "Or her genetic manipulation did not take place in embryonic state, but when she was seventeen and a nearly fully grown human."

Whatever the Sue meant, she claimed that along with her an aircraft -- a German bomber, she thought -- was pulled into the Rift. On cue, Jack's wrist communicator announced an aircraft had just landed.

"Let's go meet that plot device," Tasmin said. She closed the CCTV feed on the workstation and pulled the remote activator from her duffel bag.

-oOo-

Jack, Gwen, Owen and Tosh piled into the SUV. Ianto and the Sue followed in Ianto's car.

"How does she do that with her wings? How does she fold them to be comfortable?"

"Charge, not taking own anatomy into consideration before getting into a car. Another charge, still being naked."

Tosh had given the Sue a hand-held computer to scroll through Torchwood's database for an image of the craft she had seen.

"Prrrgh, eeee," Emma squeaked. "A fatal error has occurred. Please reboot fandom."

Torchwood arrived at the scene of the crashed airship, which the Sue had identified as Mahorven. Ianto and the Sue were told to stay in the car, but Jack left an extra gun with them. The rest of the team took position around the nose of the crashed alien ship. A single figure emerged and Jack addressed it in an alien tongue. The alien claimed to be unarmed. Jack didn't believe it and the alien attacked. Jack shot it dead. More of the aliens came out of the ship. The Sue jumped from the car and shot them.

"Overachiever," Emma muttered. "There's at least four other people around with guns and weapons training and she's the only one that makes any kills."

The alien carcasses self-combusted and turned to dust.

_That's what I like about the Mahorvens, they turn to dust when they die, no clean up for us._

"I think you've overlooked the big IFO, Jack," Emma said. "That hasn't gone anywhere."

"IFO?" Tasmin asked against her better judgement.

"Identified Flying Object."

"Should have known."

Ianto was still aware of the alien space craft. Unfortunately so. When he walked towards it he was hit by a dart that suddenly shot out of the side of the hull. Ianto collapsed.

The team hurried back to the Hub.

The agents stayed behind and looked at the Mahorven ship.

"Why didn't any of them stay behind to cordon off the area to prevent innocent bystanders from getting hurt?" Emma asked. "For an organisation that is supposed to prepare society for the future they show damn little consideration for public safety."

"Charge," Tasmin replied. "Though cordoning off is more UNIT's thing."

"Then they should have called UNIT in."

Tasmin nodded. "Let's go to the Hub. See if they can save Ianto."

-oOo-

At the Hub Gwen was sitting with Ianto, Jack was pacing and acting out his frustration, Tosh and Owen were working on finding an antidote.

_It was strange seeing Owen work for once._

"If you'd bothered to watch Series One you'd have found Owen works just as hard, sometimes harder, than any of the others." Emma glared at the Words.

"Just write down the charge of Owen bashing. You'll feel better." Tasmin took up position by the Boardroom's glass window to look into the Hub and at the same time keep an eye on the Words.

Emma pulled up one of the Boardroom chairs and sat down before she started scribbling charges in her notepad.

Ianto was hooked up to an array of machines that checked his vital signs, and others that kept his vitals going. Jack had predicted that there were only three hours to find an antidote or the poison from the dart would be lethal.

Tosh announced to have found the antidote. Owen snatched the print-out from her hand and started throwing together substances into an anti-lethal cocktail.

"I understand he's a little stressed, but I doubt Tosh's recipe says: haphazardly throw together these ingredients."

Tasmin nodded. "More like a microgram of this, two microlitres of that. Add 'Owen bad at chemistry' to his 'bad at biology'."

"I have the more general 'bad science' as a charge."

"That'll work. Not as precise, but it'll work."

Owen injected Ianto with the mix, then stepped back and waited for results.

"What are the chances that Ianto comes out of this without brain damage?"

"Considering that his heart actually stopped for a moment..." Tasmin looked pensive." And considering this is fanfic, which rarely deals with serious consequences seriously... I doubt he will have brain damage."

The antidote caught on. Jack hugged Tosh and Gwen in relief. Owen started switching off Ianto's life-support machinery. Soon after Ianto woke up.

"And there was much rejoicing," Emma said.

"Yay," Tasmin added dryly.

_The poison that was in the dart would have killed you in three hours, you were out for 2 hours and 59 minutes. Another minute and…_

"Poison that works on a clock? It's not exactly a time-bomb."

"It depends in part on how fast the biological system that was poisoned works, how quickly a poison will be lethal. I, definitely, wouldn't set my watch to it."

"What would you set your watch to?"

"The atomic clock," Tasmin replied.

Ianto was moved to the sofa and told to stay off his feet and drink as much coffee as he liked.

"I don't think coffee is a good antidote to poisoning," Tasmin said. "It's sort of poison itself."

"Don't let the Ianto fangirls hear you say that."

Ianto himself opted for water and Owen hurried to fetch it for him.

_Ianto suddenly realised that he wasn't wearing his suit. Instead he had a large, white, baggy T-shirt. He recognised it as Jack's. Also he was supporting a pair of light blue jeans that seemed to fit nicely. He shuddered at the fact that they were Owen's._

"How come we hadn't noticed that?" Emma asked.

"Because it wasn't mentioned before," Tasmin replied. "And because we assumed there wasn't time to play dress up with Ianto with the clock ticking to find an antidote."

Now that Ianto was saved Tosh used a satellite-guided laser to blow up the Mahorven ship.

"Laser can't do that," Tasmin said. "Not unless you fill the ship with explosives and use laser to detonate it."

Everyone went about their business. The Sue, who didn't have any business at Torchwood, curled up on the sofa next to Ianto and fell asleep. Ianto feel asleep too, but Jack decided he ought to answer some questions about the Sue and woke him up. Ianto said he would explain. Jack called everyone -- except the Sue -- to the Boardroom.

Emma moved her chair back to the conference table. She looked at each of the team members with anticipation.

They, in turn, all looked at Ianto.

Ianto started to talk. He had learned about the Sue in the Archives about a week earlier. He told about a secret part of Torchwood -- the agents barely contained their chuckles -- which had a way to track the Sue. It would come for her and continue to train her as a weapon.

"It would be too much to expect that this secret part of Torchwood used to share its offices with Torchwood One."

_If I'm right in thinking they already know she's here._

Predictably, the alarm bells started ringing.

"I wonder who that is," Tasmin mused.

"Probably a stray cat that set off the hypersensitive motion detectors."

The team quickly set to work on finding out where the intruders were. Jack assured the Sue they would not let her be taken away. Owen activated lock down. Ianto found three intruders four levels down. Two of them were armed. Then he turned around to give the Sue cuddles.

Without anyone paying attention the intruders managed to reach the main Hub area and opened fire on the team.

"This glass is bullet-proof, right?" Emma pushed her fingers against the glass to test it.

"Don't see the point to it. Unless they expect a lot of indoor shoot outs," Tasmin replied.

The team ducked for cover.

_Owen had pulled Gwen sharply to the floor and covered her body with his chest._

Gwen had shrunk considerably to accommodate the fic.

The Sue gave herself and Ianto cover with her wings. She shouted, "Stop!" and everyone held their fire. The Sue addressed one of the intruders as doctor Woodrow. He appeared to be her creator. He claimed to have found, and lost, a cure for ageing.

"Ageing is not a disease. It's an effect of time moving on. He found something to halt the process of deterioration commonly associated with ageing and prevent the diseases and discomforts that come from that."

"You're debating semantics again," Emma said.

While the Sue and Woodrow bantered no one paid attention to his two henchmen. One of them snuck around to Ianto and put a gun against his head. Now Woodrow had the upper hand. The Sue gave herself up. Jack also put his gun to the ground.

The Sue was put in handcuffs. Jack played his last card: the Hub was in lock down and wouldn't open for another three hours. Woodrow just smiled and pulled a device from his pocket. With a simple press of the button he overwrote Torchwood's security protocol.

Jack was suitably stunned.

The three intruders led the Sue away.

Then the team heard noise coming from outside and rushed to the street to see what it was.

"They heard an outside noise in the Hub? Did Woodrow open up the invisible lift as well?"

"Don't think so. I think we should check out what's going on." Tasmin opened a portal.

-oOo-

The agents stepped through the portal on to Roald Dahl Plass. The place was deserted except for the bodies of the three intruders. The Sue was sitting on the roof of a nearby building. Team Torchwood entered said building and ran up the stairs to talk to the Sue.

"Ianto and Gwen exerting themselves within twenty-four hours of coming back from the brink of death, slash, sustaining a severe injury." Emma scribbled down the charge.

The Sue said she had to go away, more would come after her and she needed to hide. Ianto said she could hide at the Hub.

_I was cooped up in that place for 19 years, that's all I remember._

"I thought she said she was seventeen?" Emma said.

Tasmin threw her a look.

"Can we charge her with having a bird-brain memory?"

"She never said bad memory came with the genetic engineering."

A large tank rolled up the Plass.

Tasmin rolled her eyes. "The Words say 'large tank'. Fic doesn't know what to do, so just picks the largest tank it could find in British military history. Which is the FV214 Conqueror. Currently only found at museums on military history."

Despite being out of service this tank had no problem turning its gun barrel to point it in the direction of the Sue. The tank fired a blank.

Jack looked over the edge of the building and ran his hands through his hair when he saw the UNIT logo on the side of the tank. The team ran back down the stairs and out into the Plass. In the mean time the tank driver had climbed out of the tank and the Sue had swooped down and stolen his helmet. She flew out over the bay with it. The soldier loaded a large gun and aimed it at the Sue.

_Jack ran to the soldier and shifted the gun slightly as the barrel exploded._

The agents ducked for cover from flying bits of Jack and UNIT soldier. Strangely enough, the two of them were all right. Rather, it had been the Sue who was hit by the shrapnel. She dropped down from the sky into the water. Everyone ran to the waterside.

_Ianto slipped off his jacket as he ran and jumped into the water like an Olympic swimmer._

"He should have taken off the rest of his clothes as well," Tasmin said as the agents searched the water for a sign of the Sue. "The seconds he loses undressing are easily won back by being much quicker in the water."

Ianto pulled the Sue out of the water. Owen began CPR as soon as she was on dry land. Tosh and Gwen cried. The CPR worked as it got the Sue back to breathing. She was taken back to the Hub where Owen could take care of her gun shot wound. Jack also took the soldier back to the Hub.

-oOo-

The agents took up positions back in the Boardroom. Emma reviewed the charge list. "I think we have about enough charges to charge this Sue."

"Yeah, we should make it quick. I don't think she's going to survive for much longer." Tasmin nodded at the Words.

The bullet had done extensive damage. Owen had tried to sort it out as best as he could, but it was no use. The Sue died when Ianto was having a post-op chat with her.

"Damn." Tasmin hit the glass with her fist. "We have to take the Sue out of this fic, or her memory will live on."

"We'll just have to go back a few-" Emma was cut off by an unexpected time rift. ""I thought you'd fixed that thing," she said. She was propped up against the wall of the interrogation room in a rather awkward position (her right shoulder touched the floor and her legs were above her). She tried to tumble to a sitting position.

"Must have slipped back into automatic," Tasmin mumbled. She had impacted with the wall slightly more comfortably.

In the middle of the room the tank driver sat, tied to a chair. Jack was busy torturing him. The rest of the team was watching.

"See," Tasmin said, "unless we take out the Sue, she will have a lasting influence. She's making all of the team think torture is an acceptable form of interrogation."

"The soldier did say 'make me'."

"That's another thing. Soldiers are instructed to, upon capture, answer all questions with their name, rank and serial number."

After being electrocuted by Jack the soldier managed his name, rank and mission statement. Then Ianto pulled the soldier's hair and asked him where the secret Torchwood's secret base was.

The agents were too annoyed to chuckle.

The soldier replied he carried this information in his pocket. Ianto took the disk, Tosh decrypted the info on her laptop and then Team Torchwood pulled out.

Jack stopped Ianto on the stairs and gave him his gun.

"_You should get the honour." He then looked at the soldier. "That woman was innocent…I hope you burn in hell."_

"Wow!" Both agents jumped in front of the soldier.

"This soldier was following orders!" Tasmin shouted. "What you are proposing is murder."

"And in no way honourable."

"She... she was innocent," Ianto stammered. He had a glassy look in his eyes.

"She was a potentially dangerous weapon. He did what he was assigned to do, protect the country against a dangerous weapon."

Jack shook his head and took his Webley back from Ianto. "I had expected to see you back a little bit earlier, ladies. You have any idea what could have happened?"

"I did tell you to be more careful about your gun."

"Yes, but telling Jack to keep it in his pants isn't really going to work," Emma said. She smirked. Tasmin just rolled her eyes.

"C'mon, Ianto. Let's go upstairs." Jack put his arm around Ianto and gently guided him up the stairs and out of the room.

"Thank you," the soldier said. "You've saved my life."

"Sadly, no." Tasmin said. She dug through her duffel bag to find one of her own guns.

"Or we could recruit him for the PPC."

Tasmin looked at her partner. "I think a memo went out from Upstairs: no more recruiting of badfic characters unless you are going to feed them yourself. Besides, he's a bit character. He doesn't even have a personality to speak of." Before the soldier could protest that assessment Tasmin had shot him between the eyes. "Now, let's see if we can resurrect that Sue for long enough that we can kill her."

-oOo-

Rather than actually trying to resurrect the Sue -- there wasn't a resurrection glove on hand anyway -- the agents went back into the fic just after the operation. She was in, what the fic called, the medical bay hooked up to a number of machines. Tasmin turned the nob on one of them which caused the machine to emit a high pitched sound. The Sue flew up from the bed.

"So good to see you are a wake."

"Who are you?"

"We're Protectors from the Plot Continuum. We're here to charge you with crimes against fanfiction and Torchwood fiction in general."

"Dear Lily, or experiment eight zero two." Emma smiled and unfolded her notepad. "We charge you with bad spelling, and bad punctuation. We charge you with bad science, particularly with the oversimplification of genetics and DNA. We charge you with Owen being a bad scientist, added to his bad grasp of biology -- he thinks a woman with wings is perfectly normal -- he makes a mess of chemistry when he tosses ingredients together for an antidote without measuring them. We charge you with bad characterisation of Owen, plus bashing his character. We charge you with bashing Ianto's character, by making the team -- including Ianto himself -- not regard Ianto as a valuable member of the team.

"We charge you with Ianto regarding your stark beauty, which we took to mean naked beauty, but never mentioning that you may need clothes. We charge you with no one ever making any comments about the fact that you are butt naked."

As if this was the first time she realised it the Sue pulled together her legs and tried to cover herself with her arms.

"We're not interested, Toots." Emma glanced her charge sheet and continued, "We charge you with the team going out of their way to make you feel comfortable and not being worried in the least that you might be dangerous. You may pull the 'I'm helpless' act, but that shouldn't have fooled Jack. He would not have thrown his gun across the floor so you would not be afraid of him. He would have found out first what kind of experiment you are and how dangerous you are, before letting you out of that cell. Jack would not let you come with them on an outing before he had figured out you were harmless and or useful. Tosh would not have given you a handy hand-held device before this was known. They really are more careful than this.

"Also, they would consider public safety a bit more. They would not have waited three hours before protecting the general public from the danger of the Mahorven ship. It's part of their job to take care of dangers like that before the public has a run in with them. We charge you with outfitting that ship with poisonous darts and dumb aliens that go on the attack unarmed. We charge you with having set poison interact with a biological system and yet working on a clock. Biological systems don't work that predictably.

"We charge you with strangers breaking in to Torchwood and the team not really being bothered so that the strangers can enter the main Hub without anyone noticing. We charge you with said strangers sneaking up on Ianto while everyone is in the same room. We charge you with killing several aliens and three intruders and Jack still calling you innocent. We charge you with Jack giving his gun to Ianto so that he can commit murder."

"I don't know anything about that."

"It's yet to happen," Tasmin said. "Or won't happen if we can help it. Think of us as the cops acting on information from precogs from _Minority Report_."

"Can I go on? We charge you with being able to sit in a car with those wings of yours. In short, we charge you with being a Mary Sue. Any last words before we kill you?"

"But you can't kill me. I didn't do anything wrong."

"Were you not paying attention while I just read out that charge sheet? Do I have to read out the whole thing again?"

Before the Sue could reply to that Tasmin had shot her. "I don't care about her; **I** don't want to hear that whole thing again."

-oOo-

_A/N: I know how TV shows and films oversimplify what is already known about genetics and how genes and DNA work. This often causes people with more knowledge of biology than the average person to rant at their TVs. Owen could have shown in a lot of different ways that Lily was possibly human (her blood group, her skeletal build) before he had to revert to "look, humans don't have these genes".Though I don't know all that much about DNA myself, I know it is complexer than that, and I'd like that factoid to be acknowledge in fic. Besides, how the angel was made isn't so important to the fic as is the fact that she was made. Owen could have argued it must have been genetic engineering because Lily didn't have any operating scars. That would have made sense and it would have avoided Owen talking about things he can't know yet. _


	14. new start, rock star kid and

_A/N: Protectors of the Plot Continuum was founded by Jay and Acacia. Excerpts in italics taken from _new start, rock star kid and i hot new boyfriend_ by 00torchwood._

-oOo-

"What are you laughing about?" Tasmin asked. When she returned to her Response Centre after her run she had found her partner rolling on the floor clutching her stomach.

"We have a new mission," Emma managed between gasping for air and bursting out laughing again.

"What's so funny about that?"

"I don't know." Emma wiped some tears from her face. "I never got past the first line."

Tasmin turned to the screen of the console and read the opening line of the fic. "Seriously." She rolled her eyes and started pushing buttons. "You better pull yourself together because we are going into this mission."

-oOo-

The portal brought the agents to what seemed to be a house.

"I brought us in too early," Tasmin said.

"What makes you say that?"

"_Dad have you got everything?" came a voice from Captain Jack Hardness's now empty kitchen._

Emma rolled over laughing again.

"That." Tasmin sighed. "I suggest you try to catch that mini-reaper while I write this Sue up for bad punctuation, disembodied speaking and being Jack's uncanonical daughter."

"I don't think he could have gotten far," Emma said. "What with being erect." She made a handgesture to illustrate her comment. And had another laughing fit.

"Juvenile." Tasmin pushed a linnen sack into her partner's hand, and pulled a PDA from her duffel bag to start a charge sheet.

While Emma went in search of the mini-reaper in the not-empty kitchen, Tasmin followed the voice that questionedJack about his travel arrangements.

_Jack Harkness was moving to England to retire, he had been in the US air forces since he was 16_

"US Air Force requires a person to be at least seventeen before they can even apply to join the Air Force," Tasmin muttered. "There are no sixteen-year-olds in the US Air Force." Tasmin made a note in her PDA, and wondered whether the misspelling of this branch of the military had also created a mini-reaper. If so, Emma would probably run into it sooner or later.

_become a farther at the age of 19 with was hard on him. His family had disowned him when he came out as bisexually at the age of 20._

"Not to mention that the Air Force would have kicked him out for 'making a statement of homosexuality'. Don't these Sues ever bother to read the job requirement FAQs?"

The narrative concluded by telling that Jack and his daughter had a holiday and weekend relationship while she was growing up, but had become very close in the year that her mother had died. Jack whined that he didn't really want to go on his trip.

"_Dad, go you need this, don't worry about me I have school and a band to keep me going I will be great"_

"That that school that taught you about punctuation?" Tasmin asked. "I think you need to ask for a refund on any tuition you paid."

"Got them!" Emma emerged from the kitchen holding a sack that contained something – or probably several somethings – that was squirming wildly. "What have you got?"

"Jack Harkness leaving a seventeen-year-old to fend for herself because he wants a normal life."

Emma raised her eye-brow. "Jack walking away from responsibility, that's a charge. Isn't he legally required to take care of a minor in his custody?"

"Depends of course in which state this story is set. In Missouri she'd be considered an adult. Or she could have been emancipated, but I doubt that's the case here. That would mean she either married, joined the military or filed a petition with the court stating that Jack is unsuitable to take care of her and she can do a better job."

"Isn't leaving her proof of that?"

"It would be a reason to petition. But, seeing as that hasn't happened yet, she can't have petition yet, and can't have been empancipated yet."

Jack pulled the crying Sue in a hug. He told her she could call him any time and that he would come and see her when her band played Cardiff.

"I thought her name sounded familiar," Emma said. "She's named like that singer, of that band, looks like her too."

Tasmin looked at her partner blankly and narrowed her eyes. "You need to be a little more specific."

"You think this could be real person fic?"

"Not unless this real person was fathered by a fictional character," Tasmin replied. "Which is impossible. This is either a Sue with the same name, or an imposter!Sue. And we know how to deal with those."

Jack and the Sue left the house, only for Jack to return a moment later to grab his coat off the coat rack on the wall. 'Help me,' he mouthed to the agents.

"You think we should help him?" Emma asked.

Tasmin shrugged. "What's in it for us?"

"This Sue is probably going to bitch and scream and give us a headache when we charge her."

Jack gave a pleading look before turning around and shouting, "coming, honey."

"If we don't charge her the Sunflower Offical is probably going to bitch and scream and give us a headache."

"Guess we've got our motivation right there." Emma grinned. "Although, I could always let the mini-repears out of the bag in the SO's office and see what happens."

-oOo-

The portal took the agents to the airport's short term parking facility. Jack took his things from the car boot, hugged the Sue goodbye and ran off.

"_I won't do anything stupid if you don't, now be good" and with that he was out of sight._

The Sue's eyes were tear filled so she probably never saw it coming that one of the PPC agents clobered her with a blunt object and the other guided her tumble into the car boot.

Emma slammed the lid closed. "You drive. You probably know how to jump start a car."

"No need. We can just re-imagine the scenery so we are no longer at the airport."

With the blink of an eye the scenery changed to that of an abandoned road.

Emma smirked at her partner as both gathered at the back of the car. "I'm having a major _Pulp Fiction_ moment." She popped the lid of the car boot open.

The Sue looked at them scared. "What are you going to do to me?"

"Charge you," Emma said. "Then kill you."

"I'm rich, I could pay you."

"That's right, you're in a rock band and you're the back-up act for a band that announced last November they were taking a break from each other," Emma said. "You misspelled their band name, by the way." She shook the sack of minis at her.

"That's a charge," Tasmin said.

"I don't understand. What do you want?"

"Allow me to explain." Emma grinned. "We are Protectors of the Plot Continuum. And we are here to charge you with crimes against fanfiction in general and _Torchwood_ fanfiction in particular."

Tasmin had her PDA ready and started charging before the Sue could interrupt. "Hayley Williams, we charge you with giving the impression you are impersonating a famous person. We charge you with being Jack Harkness' uncanonical daughter. We charge you with giving Jack an uncanonical background, which includes him joining the US Air Force at sixteen. We charge you with changing the Air Force's personal policy to make this possible, and not discharing Jack for outing himself. We charge you with making Jack leave his underage daughter behind to take care of herself so he can go and find himself."

"Though that made a nice change from the unhealthily overprotective dad," Emma said.

Tasmin glared briefly at her partner. "We charge you with bad grammar, including random tenses switches, bad spelling, including misspelling of character names thus creating minis." Tasmin made a little nod to the sack. "And with bad punctuation, which was absent half the time and incorrect most of the rest of the time.

"We charge you with having a disembodied voice, and finally we charge you with being a Mary Sue." Tasmin tucked her PDA in her pocket. "Your punishment for these offenses is death."

"And I know just the way." Emma threw the sack of minis into the boot and quickly slammed the lid shut.

"I don't think you should use minis for that," Tasmin said.

After a while the screaming and screeching stopped. Emma carefully popped the lid and peered through the gap into the boot. Pleased with what she saw she pushed the lid open all the way. "I think it kills two birds with one stone: Sue's dead, and the minis are fed."

Tasmin looked at the minis that were lying around the boot like fat and content reptiles. Emma grabbed each of them by the scruff of the neck and threw them back in the sack. The minis were too full to move or object. "It's like feeding them turkey," Emma commented and threw the bag over her shoulder. Tasmin just nodded and opened up a portal.

-oOo-

_A/N: There's always a danger in referencing real life persons and institutions: you could get it wrong. Personally, getting it wrong is why I don't like real person fic. Getting it wrong concerning institutions (like the US Air Force) is a lot easier to avoid: visit the website of the organisation. Most information can actually be found there._


End file.
